Primates in the real world : escaping primate folklore and creating primate science / Georgina M. Montgomery.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Montgomery, Georgina M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Primates--Research--History.

Primates.

Primates--Fieldwork--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (176 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville, [Virginia] ; London, [England] : University of Virginia Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The opening of this vital new book centers on a series of graves memorializing baboons killed near Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 2009--a stark image that emphasizes both the close emotional connection between primate researchers and their subjects and the intensely human qualities of the animals. Primates in the Real World goes on to trace primatology's shift from short-term expeditions designed to help overcome centuries-old myths to the field's arrival as a recognized science sustained by a complex web of international collaborations. Considering a series of pivotal episodes spanning the twentieth century, Georgina Montgomery shows how individuals both within and outside of the scientific community gradually liberated themselves from primate folklore to create primate science. Achieved largely through a movement from the lab to the field as the primary site of observation, this development reflected an urgent and ultimately extremely productive reassessment of what constitutes "natural" behavior for primates. An important contribution to the history of science and of women's roles in science, as well as to animal studies and the exploration of the animal-human boundary, Montgomery's engagingly written narrative provides the general reader with the most accessible overview to date of this enduringly fascinating field of study.

Contents:

Separating fact from fiction

Venturing out of the lab and into the wild : early primate field studies

Control, repetition, and objectivity : turning field observation into a science

Capturing natural behavior : changing definitions of "natural" in mid-twentieth-century primate studies

Modern primatology : the emergence of long-term international field projects

Inclusion and indigenous researchers : the Africanization of the Amboseli baboon project.

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8139-3740-X

OCLC:

915768260