Is this an opening for sociology? My sense is we’re generally skeptical of universals as well, and for pretty good reasons. But I wonder if we could be a bit more cautiously optimistic, if nothing else to disprove the global ambition of homo economics.

There is the people who study human universals as a historical development (globalization, human rights); and then you have the network people studying general social forms (brokerage, small-worlds, homophily). Don't know if this is satisfying though.

The demography type of sociology is riddled with human universals.

I think we should just be more upfront about the fact that sociology is essentially "anthropology for the west". So, does it really make sense for it to question universality ? Anthropology really excels at that... and the trend of cultural anthropology should coexist with universal anthropology.