Habituating field scientists

Bibliographic Data

ID5787002
AuthorsLys Alcanya-Stevens (0000-0003-0653-1884, University of Cambridge, corresponding author), Lys Alcayna-Stevens (Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK)
Year2016
Volume46
Issue6
Pages833-853
Publication date2016-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0306312716669251
PMID28025909
OpenAlexW2532846757
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited44

This article explores the sensory dimensions of scientific field research in the only region in the world where free-ranging bonobos ( Pan paniscus) can be studied in their natural environment; the equatorial rainforest of the Democratic Republic of Congo. If, as sensory anthropologists have argued, the senses are developed, grown and honed in a given cultural and environmental milieu, how is it that field scientists come to dwell among familiarity in a world which is, at first, unfamiliar? This article builds upon previous anthropological and philosophical engagements with habituation that have critically examined primatologists' attempts to become 'neutral objects in the environment' in order to habituate wild apes to their presence. It does so by tracing the somatic modes of attention developed by European and North American researchers as they follow bonobos in these forests. The argument is that as environments, beings and their elements become familiar, they do not become 'neutral', but rather, suffused with meaning

Argument (complex analysis · Ethology · Pan paniscus · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Primate Behavior and Ecology