Tuesday, December 3, 2024

#LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back

 As part of the mass movement for #LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back, I wanted to dust off the blog and write a post, but I'm not sure what to say that hasn't already been said. Trans and gay rights are civil rights. Trans and gay rights are human rights. The only way to maintain human rights for ALL is to defend attacks on human rights that start with the most marginalized groups. We've heard "first they came for..." over and over again, and if people cannot understand that concept, I'm not sure what more we can do to explain it.

I shouldn't have to explain why Nazis are bad, or why putting morally-bankrupt billionaires and sexual predators and men with multiple felonies is a terrible idea. So I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to point out that when bigots talk about "biological sex" they have no idea what they are talking about because BIOLOGICAL SEX IS NOT A MEANINGFUL CATEGORY. Biology includes chromosomes and gonads and genitalia and hormones and secondary sexual characteristics and not all of these factors line up. Most of us don't even know what our karyotype is--the only reason we would know is if we had a health problem that requires testing it. And when bigots attack trans rights, whether in bathrooms or sports or medical care, it's about policing bodies that don't meet incredibly rigid standards of gender identity based on a Disneyfied ideal of what a cisgender woman should look and act like. Even cisgender Republican women can't meet those ideals without dieting and hair dye and plastic surgery and make-up. It's not about keeping women safe or keeping sports fair or keeping children safe, it's about creating bogeymen and impossible standards that keep everyone else scrambling so that predatory men in power can keep accumulating money and shirking consequences for their illegal and immoral acts.

If we look at nature, from clownfish to seahorse to polar bears, we can see that that sex is not categorical but fluid and often changeable. If we look at human history and culture around the world, we can see that most cultures, including early Christianity, had space for gender variance and diversity. In many cultures, queer and especially third gender/trans/non-binary people had important spiritual significance--we even see this is the history of Christian monasticism and saints like Joan of Arc and St. Marina the Monk. The aggressive policing of gender binaries arose more recently in conjunction with European colonization, where colonizing cultures exported a rigid gender binary to cultures that had diverse concepts of gender and sexuality. And now that we have made significant progress past those regressive norms, progress in racial equity and women's rights and gay rights and trans rights, there is fascist pushback to try to take away those rights.

We are not going back. Not with trans rights or queer rights or women's rights or any form of civil rights. Call your representatives, and insist that their constituents need to stand for trans rights. You can find some sample scripts and resources here.

If you are interested in learning more about some of these concepts and history, I strongly recommend Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. Roland Betencourt's Byzantine Intersectionality: Gender, Sexuality, and Race is also on my list, thanks to this great article from the Advocate.

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Monday, June 8, 2020

#DecolonizePrimatology: A Reading List


(Last updated October 2023).

The goal of this reading list is to curate a list of readings and other media that address understanding the need to decolonize primatology and developing approaches to doing so. If you find this material useful, and use it in courses or research, PLEASE CITE IT! Please note that I now have some of my own publications listed here as well; if you would like a PDF copy on any of my own work, let me know! Please be mindful that part of unsettling colonial dynamics in primatology means recognizing, acknowledging, and citing the work of Global South scholars/scholars of Global South diasporas.

There are differing definitions and understandings of what it means to decolonize. If you are new to the concept of decolonizing, and/or still struggling to understand what it means to decolonize, here are some good starting points:

IUCN Primate Specialist Group Section for Human-Primate Interactions webinar of Decolonising Primatology, organized by Sian Waters and Susan Cheyne, and featuring talks by Seheno-Andriantsaralaza, June Rubis, Jo Setchell, and myself.

My TEDx Marquette Talk: Who Gets to Be Our Conservation Heroes?

Here's some background reading on decoloniality:
And here are some videos explaining perspectives on decoloniality:

This list focuses on readings that address the 1) neocolonial history of primatology (or, in some cases, more broadly the colonial/neocolonial origins of science, anthropology, and conservation that relate to primatology), 2) the power imbalances and hierarchies between North American/European scientists/funders and the local people and communities where primate research is conducted, and/or 3) how those power hierarchies and gatekeeping limit full access, authorship, participation, and/or leadership of African, Asian, and Central/South American researchers (as well as racial/ethnic minorities in North America/Europe) relative to white North Americans and Europeans. 

This list is NOT intended to be a comprehensive list of publications from range-country primatologists. If you are looking for that, please see this editable Google doc of Publications by Range-Country Primatologists. Many thanks to Erin Kane, Cat Hobaiter, Colleen Friedly, Caitlin Hobbs, Luz Carvajal, and Elicia Abella for their work on putting this together!

This list has been a work in progress, and reflects my own readings.  However, since the IUCN Section for Human-Primate Interactions is developing resources for decolonial primatology, in the future I hope that will be a more comprehensive resource!  Also, if you use end up using any of my writing or this list in your syllabi, please let me know!

 Books:

 Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in Modern Society
by Donna Haraway

  • A feminist examination of primatology's history, focusing on the role of race, gender, and colonialism. This is one that I found to be a very challenging read in my first attempt to read it years ago. However, upon re-reading, I'm struck by how many astute observations Haraway meant about the colonial and necolonial roots, and the impact of dynamics of colonialism, racism, class, and global geopolitics in shaping primatology research. Some of us have been doing an ongoing reading group exploring chapters in this book--if you'd like to be added to the list, let me know!
Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation
by Juno Salazar Parreñas (@JunoIsHere)
  • Multispecies ethnography focusing on the work of caring for rehabilitant orangutans from decolonial, feminist perspective, highlight the unequal, neocolonial hierarchies in sanctuary care and conservation management, and the way in which emphasis on prioritizing breeding to increase population numbers may overlook the animals' welfare.
    Edited by Tracie McKinney, Sian Waters, & Michelle A. Rodrigues
  • Edited volume reviewing how humans influence primates in both wild and captive contexts. This was a collaborative effort from primatologist around the globe, with 78 authors from 24 countries. Case studies within the chapters provide examples that highlight relevant research and conservation topics. Our goal was to prioritize a range of diverse perspectives and advance a diverse, inclusive, and decolonial approach to human-primate research and conservation.
Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gender, and Society
Edited by Shirley Strum and Linda Fedigan
  • An edited volume exploring the ways in which primate research is shaped by broader cultural and historical patterns, drawing on the work of both primatologists and science and technology scholars. My favorite chapters were those that offered perspectives from Japan and Brazil.

Articles from Peer-reviewed Journals and Edited Volumes:


by Neel Ahuja. 2013.  In: The Macaque Connection: Cooperation and Conflict Between Humans and Macaques. S. Radhakrishna, MA Huffman, A Sinha, (Eds). Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects 43: Springer. pp 71-91.
  • Describes the history of Indian Rhesus macaque exportation to the United States, within the larger backdrop of British colonialism, the establishment of Indian Rhesus macaques as a biomedical model in the United States, as well as some of the broader history colonial and neo-colonial history of importing primates and establishing as biomedical models. This is especially useful for the perspective of how Clarence Ray Carpenter’s research and export of Rhesus macaques from India to Puerto Rico was predicated on a colonial model of science, and how early waves of American exportation from British colonial India despite religious and cultural objections.
by Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh. 2017. Biodiversity, 18(4):210-211
  • Highlights the efforts of African primatologists in leadership roles in African primatology and conservation, and the need for training programs and structural support to facilitate sharing information and networking among African peers.

by Michelle Bezanson (@bezanswer) and Allison McNamara ( @allison_mcnama). 2019. Evolutionary Anthropology, 28(4): 166-178.
  • Examines the distribution of primate field research across taxa and research sites, highlighting biases toward major field sites and frequently studied taxa, potential publication biases, and ethical issues with the lack of community engagement and acknowledgement.
Best Practices are Never Best: Evaluating Primate Conservation Programs (PCEPs) from a Decolonial Persective.  by Michelle Bezanson, Montserrat Franquesa-Soler, Martin Kowaleski, Allison McNamara, Rahayu Oktaviani, & Michelle A. Rodrigues. 2022. American Journal of Primatology 85(5):e23424.
  • Part of an AJP special issue on new ideas in conservation education. We consider the goals of conservation education and how they may reproduce necolonial processes, and review 20 years of primatology literature on conservation education. We concluded that education projects in habitat projects should have local leadership, and that Global North primatologists should focus on broader educational outreach to their own cultural communities.
by Mary E. Blair. 2019. International Journal of Primatology, 40: 462-464.
  • Commentary on how primatology needs to work toward decolonizing and becoming more equitable.
by Declan Butler. 2017. Nature, 54: 144-145.
  • Highlights the formation of the African Primatological Society, the important work that African primatologists are doing, and the need to support funding and training for African scientists.
by Liana Chua, Mark E. Harrison, Hannah Fair, Sol Milne, Alexander Palmer, June Rubis, Paul Thung, Serge Wich, Bram Büscher, Susan M. Cheyne, Rajindra K. Puri, Viola Schreer, Anna Stepieǹ, & Erik Meijaard. 2020. People and Nature, 2(1): 42-60.
  • Explores the interplay between conservation and social sciences through an examination of orangutan conservation. It highlights the role of community engagement, outreach to Global North to solicit funding and political support, and the role of social science in understanding the complex cultural and political landscape involved in orangutan conservation. While this paper focuses more on bridging disciplinary perspectives, it highlights many of the local and global cultural factors involved in conservation research.
The Elephant in the Room: Confronting the Colonial Character of Wildlife Conservation in Africa. 
by Elizabeth Garland. 2008. African Studies Review, 51(3): 51-74.
  • Examines the way structural inequality and neocolonial approaches characterize African conservation through cases studies of National Geographic supported work include Jane Goodall and Gombe, and Michael Fay's mega-transect project.
by Catherine Hobaiter, John Walter Akankwasa, Geresomu Muhumuza, Moreen Uwimbababazi, & Inza Koné. 2021. Current Biology, 21(20):PR1367-R11369.
  • Addresses how parachute science is part of a long history of colonial and neocolonial exploitation of people and resources, and highlights the importance of local specialists in science, with perspectives from four local chimpanzee specialists and one foreign scientist. One of the things I like about this article is they present the material as a conversation amongst themselves. They cover the importance of local specialists in chimpanzee research, obstacles to African leadership, and the role non-African primatologists should play in supporting and advancing the training and leadership of African researchers.
by Danielle N. Lee (@DNLee) 2020. Animal Behaviour, 164, 272-280.
  • Review of the contributions of underrepresented minorities to the field of American animal behavior research from 1800s to the present to restores this narratives into the discipline's history. If you use this article in your course, please make sure you send your syllabi to the author!
by Aamina H. Malik, Janine M. Ziermann, & Rui Diogo ( @Rui_Diogo_Lab). 2017. Journal of Biology Education.  DOI: 10.1080/00219266.2016.1268190
  • Overview of the contribution of Muslim scholars in developing ideas about evolution, natural selection, human's similarity to to apes/monkeys, and the evolution of human skin color from the 8th through 14th century during the Islamic Golden Age. These scholars are typically left out of Eurocentric Western accounts of the development of ideas that led to Darwin and Wallace's development of evolutionary theory. However, many of the eight scholars listed published their work, and their writings may have influenced the European thinkers that are credited for the foundations of evolutionary theory.
by Michelle A. Rodrigues, Vicent Kizza, Matthew R. McLennan, Sérgio Mendes, & Karen Strier. 2022. International Journal of Primatology, 43:1133-1158.
  • Part of a special issue in IJP of "What Works, and What Doesn't Work? The Challenge of Creating Effective Applied Conservation Research in Human-modified Habitats. We review a history of how and why primatology may reproduce necolonial dynamics, and consider the role of positionality in shaping our collaborations. We present two narratives of positionality from foreign and range country collaborators, focusing on Africa (Kizza & McLennan) and South America (Mendes & Strier). We consider how primatologies can use these examples to interrogate their own positionality, and emphasize how prioritizing range-country and local collaborators can strength primate research and conservation.
by June Mary Rubis. 2020. Cultural Studies 34(5):811-830. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2020.1780281
  • Describes how the push for recognizing Indigenous knowledge in conservation priotizes traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), but does not prioritize Indigenous inter-relationships with nature. Via a kin (case) study in Sarawak, Rubis considers the way in which conservation organization's use of the term "orang utan"--a Western term combining Malay terms for "people" and "forest"--is part of a power dynamic in which conservation organizations prioritize their views over local Iban people's relationships with the "maias" (the Iban term for orangutans). Acknowledging and using the Iban name is a step toward prioritizing Indigenous human-animal-ecosystem relationships.
by Reinmar Seidler, Richard B. Primack, Varun R. Goswami, Sarala Khaling, M. Soubadra Devy, Richard T. Corlett, Cheryl D. Knott, Erin E. Kane, Tri Wahyu Susanto, Emily Otali, Robin J. Roth, Oliver L. Phillips, Tim R. Baker, Corneille Ewango, Euridice Honario Coronado, Aurora Levesley, Simon L. Lewis, Beatriz S. Marimon, Lan Qie, Bonaventure Sonké, John W. Wilson, Richard Wrangham. 2021. Biological Conservation 255:108933.
  • Part of a special issue on long-term ethical and conservation in the tropics. This provides perspective from a wide variety of researchers about ethical challenges in long-term research, particular with addressing issues with parachute research, cross-cultural perspectives, and participation of local and Indigenous in long-term research. Each author/group of authors addressed a particular issue related to their field research. The highlight for me is Emily Otali's contribution, where she mentions that she was the African women to receive a PhD in chimpanzee behavior.
by Sindhu Radakrishna & Dale Jamieson. 2018. Journal of Biosciences, 43:3-8.
  • An important perpsective on the Eurocentric biases of primatology that highlights how cultural worldviews shape relationships with, and our understanding of non-human primates, and why those diverse cultural perspectives are needed to strengthen how primatology is practiced. The perspectives of non-Western primatologies is highlighted, with an emphasis on how different cultural/religious worldviews shape how primates are viewed in relation to humans, and thus how primatological research is approached. For example, the Euro-centric perspectives of humans in a hierarchical relationship to primates contrats with Buddhist, Shinto, and Hindu perspectives of seeing both human and non-human primates within inter-connected, non-hierarchical systems. This is one of the best perspectives I've read about how cultural worldview shapes primatology, and the importance of recognizing different culturally-situated 'primatologies,' rather than single, unified primatology.
by Mewa Singh, Mridula Singh, Honnavali N. Kumara, Dilip Chetry, Santanu Mahato. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 12(13).
  • This review provides a historical perpective of Indian primatological research. Indian primatology began from roots with zoology, and was largely iniated by foreign primatologists, predominantly American and Japanese primatologists. However, one Indian primatologist, Sho Dan Singh, began his research during this the early natural history phase, and had an important role of shaping the discipline. This paper tracks the history of Indian primatology, emphasizing Sheo Dan Singh's influence is training students, and highlights the development of an earlier Indian primatological society that became inactive, and the initation of the Association of Indian Primatologists in 2019.
Blog and Magazine Articles:

by Adam Johnson (@Anthropology365)
  • Explores Kinji Imanishi's A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things, focusing on Imanishi's perspectives on Darwinian natural selection from a Japanese perspective. Darwinian evolutionary theory has roots in the determinististic Western Enlightment philosophy, whereas Imanishi views are shaped by Japanese cultural perspectives.
by Michelle A. Rodrigues (@MARspidermonkey)
  • A summary of Bezanson and McNamara's (2019) study on field site and taxonomic biases in primate research (see above) with suggestions on ways to address these issues.
It's Time to Stop Lionizing Dian Fossey As a Conservation Hero
by Michelle A. Rodrigues (@MARspidermonkey)

  • Addressing the way in which veneration of Dian Fossey as a conservation martyr overlooks her violent methods that were rooted in neo-colonialism and racism.
Neocolonial Narratives of Primate Conservation
by Michelle A. Rodrigues (@MARspidermonkey)
  • Examines how the National Geographic documentary Jane reiterates the neocolonial narratives of primate research and African conservation, and more broadly, the way that primate conservation research is rooted in colonial and neocolonial history. 
The Achilles Heel of Conservation
 by Merlyn Nomusa Nkomo (@merynomsa)
  • Not specific to primatology, but broadly about the way that African conservation centers white foreigners while being closed to local Black Africans.
The Problem of Colonial Science
by Asha De Vos (@ashadevos)
  • Not specific to primatology, but about the problems of doing "helicopter science" and the way that global conservation research structures and funding create power imbalances and limit opportunities for local researchers to access funding and shape conservation research driven by local cultural knowledge and  expertise.
Recovering conservationist: Q&A with orangutan ecologist June Mary Rubis
by Basten Gokken
  • Malaysian ecologist June Mary Rubis describes her previous work with an international NGO with orangutan education programs with Indigenous communities. In this work, she encountered the issues working within the paternalistic Western frameworks of orangutan (maias) conservation, and the ways conservation work prioritized their views of conservation over the Indigenous Iban relationships with the maias and the forest. She describes herself as a "recovering conservationist" and recommends a shift to prioritizing Indigenous social science.
by Brurce Mecca ( @Brurce)
  • Not specific to primatology (and points the problems of  Western researchers centering their priorities in Indonesian environmental science on only orangutans and deforestation), but relevant to the dynamics between Western scientists and scientists from the areas those Western scientists study. Mecca brings up issues with how differences in inter-cultural perspectives and understandings means that for Indonesian scientists to be understood, or have their views recognized, they must assimilate to Western styles of communication and priorities. Additionally, while Western researchers set priorities in terms of addressing their hypotheses and building theory, they undervalue the perspectives and priorities of Indonesian researchers who prioritize the pressing environmental issues that affect local people's lives.

  • Critique of a commentary published in the American Journal of Primatology, De-colonizing Conservation in a Global World, by Annette Lanjouw. They note that Lanjouw brings up valuable approaches in conservation; however, it does not fully engage with recognition of colonial dynamics in conservation/primatology, cite the rich literature on decoloniality in the social sciences development by Global South scholars, or cite Global South primatologists working on decolonial approaches. They highlight that "decolonizing" should refer to unsettling colonial dynamics--and that using the term without challinging colonial/decolonial dynamics or citing Global South researchers that develop this literature perpetuates necolonialism dynamics.
by Bidyut Sarania, Krishnapriya Tamma (@priya_tamma), Samira Agnihotri, Subhashini Krishnan (@serenehowls), & Sutirtha Lahiri
  • An important perspective on how calls to decolonize research play out power dynamics in India, including tribal and casteist perspectives. While focused on India, there's an important lesson here that beyond Global North-Global South dynamics, there's additional layers of power dynamics that should be carefully considered.

Other relevant reading lists:
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Thursday, March 12, 2020

Online Resources for Teaching Bio Anth

Here's a non-exhaustive list of resources that may helpful in teaching online. If anyone would like labs online primate behavior (using video and live-feeds) or a comparative primate anatomy lab (using e-skeletons), feel free to e-mail me!

Screenshot of San Diego Ape Cam

 PRIMATE BEHAVIOR AND CONSERVATION

 Callicam
  • Virtually watch marmosets at the WNPRC!
  • Pros: associated ethograms and exercises
  • Cons: this one runs into the most issues with browser plug-in issues
  • This is the my favorite primate web cam!
  • Pros: you may see gibbon-siamang play!
  • Cons: sometimes primates are out of sight
  • There's both gorilla and chimp cams!
  • Pros: really high-quality feed!
  • Cons: sometimes primate are out of sight 
  • This is my new favorite, because I studied these bonobos!
  • Pros: Good chance of seeing my favorite bonobo friends!
  • Cons: Both indoor exhibits aren't always viewable
  • Contribute to real research!
  • Pros: good for learning to ID species
  • Cons: not great for behavioral observations



NOTE: For live feed labs/projects, remind students that finding animals/animals being out of sight is one of the biggest challenges with studying wild primates too!

Javan Slow Lorises and the Pet Trade

  • Interactive Google Tour by Sarah Fachnie that explores the pet trade.
  • Interactive Google Expedition by Raymond Vagell that explores the Duke Lemur Center and lemur vision. It can be viewed on your computer, or in 3D with a virtual reality headset!

COMPARATIVE SKELETAL ANATOMY

http://eskeletons.org/

  • Useful for primate comparative anatomy!
  • Huge comparative anatomy library!


PODCASTS





OTHER RESOURCES

  • gateway to online citizen science projects that can be used for labs!
  • gateway to online biology labs!
  • lots of virtual fun, and educator guides available!
  • lots of paleo video and interviews!


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Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Closed Gates and Opening New Doors: #SciFoo 2019

A glimpse into the world of spider monkeys


Last year I fell in love with Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. It’s about a school for teenagers who disappeared through doorways to other worlds, where they finally found a place where they fit in, but then found themselves back in our own boring, real world. The kids in the school find comradery with other kids that are all strange and weird in their own unique ways but are longing to get back to the place where they really fit. It made me of El Zota, which has always been my Narnia. When I left after 15 months of dissertation fieldwork in 2001, I needed a break and switched to new project studying captive apes. But my goal was always to either find a job that allow me to get back to field in the summers and take students with me (or find one working with captive animals that had space for me to get back to the field for applied conservation projects).  Unfortunately, my Lack of Attaining a (Real) Job made me put those plans on hold and it feels like a magical place from my dreams that I just can’t find the doorway back too. I ended up moving on to research studying woman of color scientists specifically to create space for myself and others in academia, but in doing so I have become even more aware of all the doors that keep slamming Because I Am Not Welcome.

But then in April I received an e-mail invitation to Science Foo Camp. It looked a bit more like a random spam e-mail than a key to a new door, but when You Get a Summons Inviting You In… the only obvious step seems to follow it.  But the invitation to Sci Foo describes how they invite people doing “groundbreaking work,” and I was worried that it was Another Place I Did Not Belong.

My career is a Total, Utter Failure. In six years, I haven’t been able get the most important part of my dissertation published. In seven years of interviewing for academic and non-academic jobs, I have failed, again and again, to impress hiring directors and search committees. I have been knocking on 280+ doors, and most of them have been slammed in my face. And I have also been repeatedly reminded, in so many small and large ways, in which I Do Not Belong unless I flatten and mold myself into something that is… not quite myself.

But Sci Foo also fell right in the middle of when a friend was teaching a field course at El Zota.  We planned for me to come down and give a guest lecture in her course and was Finally Going Back. But there was that e-mail for an exclusive, invitation-only conference that I may never get an invite to again, so I put my field plans on hold and Said Yes to Sci Foo. I thought I could work around it go to El Zota after, but my friend’s class was cancelled due to low enrollment. And the one week that she would go down to Costa Rica was exactly when I would be at Sci Foo.

I would much rather visit the Beautiful Swampy Rainforest That Haunts My Dreams, instead of networking with a bunch of strangers who probably think I Do Not Belong.

#fieldworkfail: The Swamp of Sorrows Where I Nearly Drowned of Failure

But I went, and I was pleasantly surprised that the exclusive, invitation-only had the peculiar effect of almost eliminating the normal forms of gatekeeping and hierarchy academia has taught me to expect as normal. Instead of the “Do you even go here” responses I expect, people treated me like belonged. Until now, I had not consciously recognized how incredibly constant that experience has been, and the ways in which it has paradoxically intensified after receiving my PhD and Failing To Get a (Real) Job. So many of my experiences in science, from applying to field positions to applying to graduate school to submitting grants and manuscripts and 280+ job applications have been “You Can’t Sit With Us.” When I have been offered a seat, it’s always been at the Academic Kids Table (visiting, adjunct, postdoc positions), where it is impressed upon me that I am Just a Trainee and Still Early Career with less potential than the graduate students who *could* lived up to the potential I Failed to Achieve.

The best part about Sci Foo was being treated like an adult that was welcome to sit with anyone and included in conversations on everything from non-human language to protein-folding to the search for alien life and treated like A Real Scientist With Valid Expertise.

I had some amazing conversations and met fantastic people. Of course, there were sessions that were mostly old white men talking among themselves and conversations where I still didn’t feel like I quite fit in. But there were also fascinating conversations with people that made an intentional effort to invite new people in and make sure that if you were talked over that you were heard. Through those conversations I was reminded of the passions I have set on the back burner.  In a failure story slam, I talked about the #fieldworkfail that reminded me how much I love The Swamp of Sadness Where I Nearly Drowned of Failure. For years I have failed to get back to my gorgeous, swampy, bullet-ant infested rainforest, and dreamed about writing a fieldwork memoir interspersing my #fieldworkfails with stories of spider monkeys. I want to share the social lives of these enchanting, endangered animals, and how important it is to understand their world and conserve their forests before it becomes too late. That was plan, back when I started Spider Monkey Tales, but I have kept getting further and further away from that goal.

When I started studying them in 2005, Geoffroy's spider monkey was not listed as Endangered. Now they are one of the 25 Most EndangeredPrimates. Now is getting precariously close to Its Too Late.

I have been getting caught up with fighting to get into the gates slammed in my face instead of findings ways to create the doors back to where I really want to be.

I need to get my butt back down to that beautiful rainforest and plunge right into The Swamp of Sadness Where I Nearly Drowned of Failure and get cracking on Writing the Damn Book. And I think I’m done trying to fight my way into places that don’t want me.

Who wouldn't want to read a book about these gorgeous creatures' lives?


So anyway, if you get a strange e-mail inviting you to a gather of Really Important People Where You Probably Don’t Belong, take it. It might just be that magical key that leads you back to finding the door that’s always been there, waiting for you to find it again.

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Friday, May 11, 2018

Do we need white privilege to teach about race?

Last year, in the wake of Charlottesville, I saw quite a few biological anthropologists state on social media that they would use their white privilege to expand how they address the anthropology of race and human variation. While I appreciate their commitment to using white privilege to dismantle myths about race that underlie white supremacy, this statement made me uncomfortable. If anthropologists need white privilege in order to teach white students about race, what does that mean for anthropologists of color teaching these topics? What does that mean for students of color, in a classroom curriculum that may unintentionally center the education of white students?

So I drafted a blog entry which I didn't post. I didn't quite feel comfortable posting something that critiqued senior colleagues' good intentions. But in the light of more recent discussions about the way in which anthropology pushes students of color out of the "pipeline," and recent discussion on twitter about the challenges black professors have in teaching about race, I think it's worth revisiting.

In my own experiences of teaching biological anthropology, I've used my own identity as an example of how its difficult to categorize people based on appearance. While others do similar exercises with online resources or pictures of celebrities, I think my identity can be an asset in engaging students in a personal way. On the other hand, it can also negatively affect how students perceive my expertise and effectiveness as a professor, and make it riskier for my to teach challenging topics. As a visible minority, there's limits to what I can teach and how I can teach it without risking pushback from students. I discuss race from a biocultural perspective, but avoid directly tackling the issue of white privilege, whereas white colleagues can more easily address it because they share that experience with their white students.

I wish colleagues would explicitly recognize that their white privilege affects both their ability to teach challenging topics and how students evaluate them--and  that this has greater implications for the inclusion and retention of minority students and faculty within anthropology. Student evaluations play a role in if contingent faculty get renewed contracts, how job candidates are evaluated, and whether tenure-track professors receive tenure. They are well-documented biases based on race and gender. Racialized minorities, particularly women of color, need to constantly assess how their teaching will be received in light of these biases. And often, "diversity" is valued in the classroom for educating white students, which may came at the expense of minority students. When educating white students is centered, I worry that it may shine an uncomfortable spotlight on students of color. I've been in situations where I was expected to share my experiences of racism to educate white colleagues, and it's incredibly uncomfortable. We need to be mindful of how, often unintentionally, these experiences alienate minority students.


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Wednesday, February 7, 2018

"Are we othering you?" The elephant in the room when we talk about minority inclusion in Biological Anthropology

Yeah... I can relate to that. From
 http://www.melbrown.org/elephant-in-the-room/
The first year of my master's I was friends with a grad student who would make odd comments about my appearance and identity. There would be comments about my skin color, or comparisons to Parminder Nagra, or about how our friend group was "so diverse" because there was a blond, a redhead... and me. And they were followed by the question "Are we othering you?"

Today I would call those comments microaggressions, and recognized the challenge in that question to actual call her out. I didn't, and it took a lot more overt bullying and eventually ostracism for me to realize that she was not a genuine friend. But as I read the recent article on Race and Diversity in Biological Anthropology, and especially Savannah Martin's commentary on "Othering" that was cited within it, those words echoed in my mind.

I've experienced more of those microaggressions from other anthropologists than I've ever experienced from non-anthropologists. And I suspect that's because anthropologists have an idea that they "know" about race, because, hey, they talk about and teach about it, right? But their discomfort ends up bubbling out, in jokes and odd comments and weird treatment. That discomfort was obvious when I was a TA for an archaeologist teaching an introductory class on biological anthropology and archaeology. On the way to teach the "race" lecture, he told an anecdote about his young niece, who was half-Indian. "She's Indian. Dot, not feather!" He looked me in the eye and laughed at his joke, while the other TA and I exchanged panicked glances as we wondered how he was actually going to handle talking about race in class (spoiler alert: it was pretty bad).

These are the sort of things you have to just brush off if you are a racial minority within anthropology. Of course, even with trying to ignore them, the accumulated toil of those comments can negatively impact mental and physical health. But when those may be the people serving on committees who decides who gets into graduate school, who passes comprehensive exams, and who gets tenure-track jobs... is it any wonder that so few minorities make it through the gauntlet from undergrad to tenure-track and tenured positions?

Anton, Malhi, and Fuentes review many of the issues that serve as impediments to racialized minorities within anthropology, especially highlighting the impact of "physical" anthropology's racist origins, and the problems inherent in the name of the discipline. They present survey data from 30 anthropology programs that suggests that biological anthropogy loses minorities at two key junctures: from undergraduate to graduate school, and graduate school to faculty positions.
Figure 1 from Anton et al, 2018. Minorities get a pretty tiny slice of the bio anthro pie.

They also review some of the programs that the Committee on Diversity has implemented to increase recruitment and inclusion, and suggest priorities for the future. Some of these are focused on recruitment to graduate programs, such as suggesting that departments eliminate GREs as a requirement for admission. They also discuss the need to improve retention, through methods such as mentoring and valuing service and outreach.

Utimately, my cynical opinion is that these solutions are not going to fix the underlying problem. I'm not so optimistic about recruiting more minority students just to expose them to a gauntlet of microaggressions and exclusion. And while mentoring may help in forming supportive networks, it still puts the burden on "solving" the problem of minority inclusion on minority students and faculty.

Yeah, let's just recruit more students of color to run the gauntlet...
From Swedish artist Emanu


A few years ago, I was on a campus interview where the search commitee emphasized how much they value diversity, and their goal of making the campus environment more inclusive. The next day, I had breakfast with the one minority professor on the faculty, who wasn't on the committee. She warned me that although they give a lot of lip service to the idea of "diversity", they don't actually "want" diversity, because it makes them uncomfortable (spoiler alert: I did not get the job).

THIS, right there, is the problem. Until the white majority of biological anthropology faculty actually confront their own discomfort around racial and ethnic minorities, we are not going to be actively included. We will always be the "other," and never part of the "us." The message is clear that we are not wanted, no matter how much lip service is given to "diversity" and inclusion.





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Friday, January 5, 2018

Human infants prefer helpers, but adult bonobos prefer hinderers

Over the past couple of days, headlines about a new bonobo paper caught my eye:

"Unlike Humans, Bonobos Shun Helpers and Befriend the Bullies"

"Humans like Helpers, but Bonobos Prefer Bullies"

"'Laid-back' Bonobos Take a Shine to Belligerents"

My initial reaction to the stories was mixed. One one hand, I'm really glad we are moving beyond stereotyping bonobos as peaceful "hippy chimps" who are constantly having orgies and nice all the time. Bonobos can be aggressive, both to their bonobo conspecifics and sometimes human caretakers. They do have engage in a variety of sexual behaviors with all age and sex classes, but that sexual behavior is typically over in a matter of seconds. Much like humans and chimpanzees, their lives are full of complex social relationships that include friendship, fighting, and jockeying for power and position.

My bonobo bestie Susie, who lives at the Columbus Zoo,
taught me that bonobo social lives are just as rich and complicated as our own.

On the other hand... having survived both junior high and academia (so far), I certainly do not buy the idea that humans like helpers and shun bullies. I'm familiar with the study that elegantly demonstrates that human infants prefer "helpers" to "hinderers," but my personal experience with humans suggests that for older humans, such behavior is likely vary context-dependent. And having spent some time studying bonobos, I suspect that, like us, how they would react in such situations would also likely be context-dependent.

But to evaluate this evidence, I needed to read Krupenye and Hare's article. They did four experiments on bonobos from ages 4-19 at Lola ya Bonobo, a sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the first experiment, they repeated the study done with human infants, where a square and triangle with googly eyes help or hinder a googly-eyed circle in climbing up a hill. The bonobos could then reach for a food reward under a cut-out of the mean, "hinderer" or nice "helper." Overall, the bonobos exhibited a significant bias toward reaching to the hinderer cut-out for food. However, when adults (> 9 years old) and subadults were analyzed separately, this bias was ONLY significant for the adults. In control trials with non-googly-eyed helpers/hinderers, there was no bias toward others.

Figure 1 from Krupenye and Hare (2017). See caption for more detail.

In the next two experiments, bonobos watched humans act as helpers or hinderers, and then could reach out to either to take a food reward. In Experiment 2, the bonobo subjects watched a human playing with a stuffed animal and dropping it. The helper tried to return the toy, while the hinderer snatched it away. The bonobos could then choose food offered at the same time from either the helper or hinderer. In this experiment, there were no significant differences when all age groups were lumped together. However, when adults and subadults were analyzed separately, adults exhibited a significant preference for "hinderers", while subadults didn't.

Figure 3 from Krupenye and Hare (2017). See caption for more detail.

Experiment 3 followed the same protocol as Experiment 2, but they did four trials beforehand where the bonobos were just offered food from the same two people. If bonobos exhibited a preference for one person, that person was assigned the "helper" position. If bonobos exhibited no preference in the initial trials, the 'helper" position was assigned semi-randomly. Bonobos exhibited a significant bias toward shifting to take food from the "hinderer." However, only adults participated in this experiment.

Finally, in Experiment 4, they did another experiment with the googly-eyed shapes, only this time they showed one googly-eyed shape displace the other for position. Displacements, where one individual takes another individual's spot, is a demonstration of dominance in primates. Humans do this too, and bonobos should recognize the "displacer" as the dominant individual. Overall, the bonobos exhibited a significant preference for the dominant individuals. Like the first experiment, when adults and subadults were analyzed separately, only the adults exhibited significant results.

So what do these results tell us? I think Krupenye and Hare have nicely demonstrated that adult bonobos in a sanctuary setting prefer "hinderers" or dominant individuals. However, these results don't hold for the younger bonobos (ages 4-9). And that's where the comparison to humans fall short. We can't compare human infants to adult bonobos, and then conclude that this is a species difference. I suspect that this may be an age difference in both species, though there also may be greater variation depending on culture, personality, socialization, etc.

Female bonobo Unga grooms infant Jerry at the Columbus Zoo. Bonobo mothers invest heavily
in caring for their offspring, so orphans who lost their mothers may potential behave differently.

Additionally, I have some concerns about how rearing history and choice of actors may have affected results. The bonobos were orphans who typically arrived at the sanctuary around 2-3 years old. Before this, they most likely witnessed their mothers (and possible other group-mates) killed by poachers. They then may have been held in cages and poorly cared for before being confiscated. Then, they are nurtured primarily by Congolese women that work at the sanctuary, while having access to play with peers. Thus, all of the bonobo subjects have a history of early trauma that may potentially affect their interactions with both humans and other bonobos. The people acting as "helpers" and "hinderers" were both Congolese men who had never interacted with the bonobos before, and I think it's possible that their identity may be a factor that could affect bonobos choices.

Nonetheless, this is some fascinating research, and hopefully it will be replicated with chimpanzees and other primates. The full-text of the study is available online, and you can watch the supplemental videos to get a better idea of what the experiments looked like.
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