Habituated Knowledges: The Entanglements of Science, Species, and Selfhood

Abstract

Examining personal narratives written by field primatologists, this essay argues that habituation—the process of accustoming a free-living animal to the researcher’s presence—produces “habituated knowledges.” These knowledges and knowledge-making practices recognize other species as co-participants in knowledge production and rewrite the boundaries of the researcher’s self to include nonhuman study subjects.

Keywords:

• habituation
• primatology
• feminist science studies
• multispecies justice

Acknowledgments

This research was funded with grants from the Culture and Animals Foundation, the Animals and Society Institute, the Oregon Humanities Center, and the University of Oregon Graduate School. Special thanks go to these organizations and to Megan Mulder at Wake Forest University for providing access to archival materials during the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay also benefitted from conversations with Stephanie LeMenager, Stacy Alaimo, Marsha Weisiger, Ursula Heise, and Erika Milam. Thank you for being so exceptional to think with.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Haraway, Primate Visions, 165. This discussion does not engage Japanese primatology, which has different origins, research practices, and narratives. Due to language and archival constraints, I focus on the anglophone primatologies and associated narratives developed in the US and the UK.

2 Haraway, Primate Visions; Strum and Fedigan, “Changing Views”; Keller, “Women, Gender, and Science.”

3 My use of the term positionality refers not only to the material and discursive positions that one occupies during a specific moment in time, but also how one navigates these positions.

4 Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 187.

5 For considerations of trust, see Strum, “Life,” 678; Goodall, Through a Window, 219, 243; Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 12.

6 Abblitt, “Composite Lives”; Huff, “From the Autobiographical Pact.”

7 Post-structuralism, feminist theory, post-colonial criticism, and Indigenous studies, among other critical orientations, have—for different reasons and through varying means—destabilized the bounded, autonomous, and unitary self. These approaches have emphasized interconnection, mutability, and multiplicity. For more, see the subsequent discussion on personhood.

8 Smith, Reading Autobiography, 61.

9 Thompson, “Habituation,” 128.

10 Alcayna-Stevens, “Habituating Field Scientists,” 833–834; Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 33.

11 Goldsmith, “Habituating Primates,” 50.

12 Carpenter, Field Study, 23.

13 Carpenter, Field Study, 22, 23.

14 For more on habituation as a method, see Alcayna-Stevens, “Habituating Field Scientists,” 834.

15 Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 187.

16 Goldsmith, “Habituating Primates,” 50.

17 Schaller, The Mountain Gorilla, 22.

18 Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 187–188. Schaller opted for habituation over provisioning and blinds for these reasons. See Schaller, The Mountain Gorilla, 22–23.

19 Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 34; Butynski, “Africa’s Great Apes,” 35; Hanson and Riley, “Beyond Neutrality,” 870–871.

20 Doran-Sheehy et al., “Habituation of Western Gorillas”; Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees.”

21 Fedigan, “Ethical Issues,” 758.

22 Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 33. They also note, “The key to success [in achieving habituation] is persistent, regular and frequent neutral contact with the same individuals” (46).

23 Haraway, “Encounters with Companion Species,” 108. See also Haraway, When Species Meet, 24.

24 Recent research produced from the vantage of feminist ethics has illuminated several ways in which primates are harmed by the persistent presence of scientists. As Williamson and Feistner observe, the costs are “borne largely by the animals themselves” (“Habituating Primates,” 34). Some of the many costs of habituation include increased stress levels, which cause infertility, brain damage, and weakened immune systems; greater vulnerability to poachers, who primates might see as friendly; the introduction of harmful diseases; increased risk of inbreeding; and increased risk of primates wandering onto agricultural and urban lands where they are not welcome. Goldsmith, “Habituating Primates,” 52–54; Butynski, “Africa’s Great Apes,” 36–37; Fedigan, “Ethical Issues,” 760; Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 45–46.

25 Fedigan, “Ethical Issues,” 760.

26 Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 187.

27 See, for example, Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 187–188; Doran-Sheehy et al., “Habituation of Western Gorillas,” 1355.

28 As Jolly observes, primatology requires that nonhuman primates and scientists “cooperate” in order to get along together. Jolly, “Survival Writing,” 478.

29 Butynski, “Africa’s Great Apes,” 36; Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 39. See also Doran-Sheehy et al., “Habituation of Western Gorillas,” 1355; Alcayna-Stevens, “Habituating Field Scientists,” 835; Hanson and Riley, “Beyond Neutrality,” 853.

30 Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 40; Alcayna-Stevens, “Habituating Field Scientists,” 847.

31 Goldsmith, “Habituating Primates”; Alcayna-Stevens, “Habituating Field Scientists,” 835.

32 Strum and Fedigan, “Changing Views,” 47.

33 Haraway, Primate Visions, 120–121; Altmann and Altmann, “Transformation.”

34 Strum and Fedigan, “Changing Views,” 5.

35 Haraway, Primate Visions, 10, 145–147, 151.

36 Females, infants, and adolescents were largely ignored unless they came into a male’s sphere of influence. Strum and Fedigan, “Changing Views,” 5.

37 The Trimates never addressed Leakey’s romantic and sexual advances in their public writings. However, shortly after meeting Leakey in 1957, Goodall wrote in a letter, “Old Louis really is infantile in his infatuation and is suggesting the most impossible things. I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with him in the ways he suggests” (Africa in My Blood, 118). Fossey had a different relationship with Leakey—one where she accepted his gifts and love letters. Montgomery, Walking, 86–87.

38 Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 6. See also Jampel, Among the Wild Chimpanzees; Haraway, Primate Visions, 151.

39 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 49. Goodall repeated this claim at a joint talk for the Leakey Foundation. See Galdikas, Fossey, and Goodall, “Man & Ape.”

40 Goodall, Africa in My Blood, 195; Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 62, 385. Leakey’s parents were Christian missionaries and he remained deeply religious throughout his life. The “spiritual father” carried religious and disciplinary indebtedness.

41 For discussions of female primatologists being viewed as mothers, see Haraway, Primate Visions, 145, 149; Noble, “Politics,” 441. Galdikas embraced a mothering role, portraying herself as a mother to orphaned orangutan infants throughout Reflections of Eden.

42 Hayes, “Dark Romance,” 65. This article became the starting point for the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist, starring Sigourney Weaver, and also his later book, The Dark Romance of Dian Fossey. Hayes’ article was published two years after Fossey’s death. For more on the critiques against Fossey, see Noble, “Politics,” 453–454; De la Bédoyère, No One, 141.

43 Strum, Almost Human; Smuts, Sex and Friendship; Strum and Fedigan, “Changing Views,” 18; Milam, “Making Males Aggressive,” 949; Keller, “Feminism and Science,” 591–592 .

44 Haraway, Primate Visions, 293.

45 Rees, “Reflections on the Field,” 883.

46 Lewenstein, “Was There Really?”; Cooter and Pumfrey, “Separate Spheres.”

47 Noble, “Politics,” 460; Haraway, Primate Visions, 157–158.

48 Goodall’s first National Geographic magazine article appeared in 1963, with three million copies printed. Goodall, Africa in My Blood, 196.

49 Haraway, Primate Visions, 158.

50 Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 139.

51 Goodall, Africa in My Blood, 160.

52 Goodall, Africa in My Blood, 184.

53 Goodall, Africa in My Blood, 220.

54 Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 141. Leakey, it was said, carried this message in his pocket for several years. See Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 48.

55 Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 141. Unlike Goodall, Fossey permitted and even welcomed close contact with her primate research subjects.

56 Galdikas developed the term semisolitary. See Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 25, 243.

57 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 252–253.

58 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 101.

59 Strum, “Life,” 678.

60 Strum, Almost Human, 38.

61 Smuts, Sex and Friendship, 27.

62 Locke, An Essay, 335.

63 Keller, Reflections on Gender, 9.

64 Keller, Reflections on Gender, 8–9.

65 Keller, Reflections on Gender, 7. By seeking to banish the personal, she concluded, science “contains precisely what it rejects: the vivid traces of a reflected self image” (70).

66 Multispecies studies describes a collection of approaches that understand all beings and things—including diverse groups of humans—as constantly emerging through multiple encounters, contacts, and relations with other entities. Influenced by feminist theories, especially feminist science studies, multispecies approaches seek to blur the boundaries and categories that separate humankind from other species while maintaining an appreciation for the differences that distinguish kinds. For an introduction to the field, see van Dooren, Kirksey, and Münster, “Multispecies Studies.”

67 Haraway, When Species Meet, 4.

68 Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe, 57.

69 Goodall, Through a Window, 139.

70 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 49.

71 Strum, Almost Human, 61. See also Haraway, Primate Visions, 149.

72 Flaum, Miss Goodall; Jampel, Among the Wild Chimpanzees; Van Lawick-Goodall, “New Discoveries,” 825; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow; Campbell and Young, Search; Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 281.

73 Flaum, Miss Goodall.

74 Goodall, “My Life,” 281; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 61, 72, 268; Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe, 2.

75 Galdikas, “Orangutans,” 448; Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 110, 113.

76 Haraway, Primate Visions, 7.

77 Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 57.

78 Strum, Almost Human, 196.

79 As the post-colonial ecocritic Rob Nixon explains, “The colonial rescripting of wildlife scarcity as a black problem—which helped rationalize the early twentieth-century creation of national parks [in South Africa and across the continent]—depended on demonizing blacks as barbarous poachers whose relationship to wildlife was one of illegality and threat while depending, conversely, on mythologizing whites as stewards of nature whose conservationist principles evidenced a wider civilizational superiority” (Slow Violence, 190). Like colonial South Africans, white scientists from the US and the UK participated in, and benefitted from, the policing of access to wildlife.

80 See, for example, the leadership staff of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, who, according to their website, are proud to “represent multiple nationalities.” See: https://gorillafund.org/who-we-are/leadership-2/

81 Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 16.

82 Walking barefoot, as discussed above, can be read as a similar attempt to behave like an African and a chimpanzee.

83 Tutin and Fernandez, “Responses of Wild Chimpanzees,” 189. See also Williamson and Feistner, “Habituating Primates,” 38. Fossey also emphasized how “clear visibility” yielded “excellent” observations throughout her field notes (“Fossey’s Notes,” 225).

84 If the scientist is hiding and becomes discovered, they can spook the primate group or even suffer physical injury. Schaller adopted habituation to avoid the danger posed by hiding in blinds or dense vegetation. Schaller, The Mountain Gorilla, 22. See also Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 58; Flaum, Miss Goodall. Perhaps most obviously, if the primate group is not visible, information about their behaviors cannot be recorded.

85 Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 11; Fossey, “Outline.”

86 Flaum, Miss Goodall; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, Photo Inset 1; Campbell and Young, Search; Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 80; Strum, Almost Human, 13, 36; Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 92.

87 For clear examples of this language, see Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 145; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 29; Goodall, Through a Window, 82.

88 Rich, “The Observer,” 264.

89 Haraway, When Species Meet, 17.

90 Haraway reminds us, “Vision is always a question in the power to see—and perhaps of the violence implicit in our visualizing practices” (“Situated Knowledges,” 585). Similarly, van Dooren observes that “ways of seeing are never neutral or innocent” (The Wake of Crows, 13) .

91 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” 582, 583.

92 Smuts, Sex and Friendship, 27.

93 Smuts, Sex and Friendship, 8.

94 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” 590.

95 Haraway, Modest_Witness.

96 Strum, Almost Human, 35.

97 Rees, “Reflections on the Field,” 886. Barad’s intra-action would be a better term as it emphasizes the ways actors are always coming into being through, and never outside of, relationality. “To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities,” Barad writes, “but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. … Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating” (Meeting the Universe Halfway, ix).

98 Flaum, Miss Goodall; Goodall, “My Life,” 300; Van Lawick-Goodall, “New Discoveries,” 815; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 54.

99 Flaum, Miss Goodall; Myrow and Saxon, Monkeys, Apes, and Man ; Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 157, 173.

100 Strum, Almost Human, 56.

101 Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 13.

102 Fossey, “Making Friends,” 51. See also Campbell and Young, Search; Fossey, “More Years,” 577; Fossey, “The Imperiled,” 503; Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 11, 53–54; Fossey, “Fossey’s Notes”; Fossey, “Manual for Census Worker,” 1–2.

103 Galdikas, “Verbatim Transcriptions.”

104 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 337.

105 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” 593.

106 Fossey, “Making Friends,” 49.

107 Haraway, When Species Meet, 24; Strum, “Life,” 686; Strum, interview by Hayes; Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist, 141; Van Lawick-Goodall, In the Shadow, 2.

108 Strum, Almost Human, 24.

109 Strum, “Life,” 679.

110 Strum, Almost Human, 36.

111 Strum, Almost Human, 57.

112 Strum, “Life,” 674.

113 Keller, A Feeling.

114 Rees, “Reflections on the Field,” 893.

115 Hanson and Riley, “Beyond Neutrality,” 854.

116 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 184.

117 Keller, “Women, Gender, and Science,” 386 (emphasis added).

118 Galdikas, Reflections of Eden, 391.

119 van Dooren, Kirksey, and Münster, “Multispecies Studies,” 17.

120 Chrulew, “Ontological Ethopolitics.”

121 Haraway, “It Matters.”

122 Otjen, “Indigenous Radical Resurgence”; Otjen, “Uncomfortable Encounters.”