Alcayna-Stevens Lys
Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
Soc Stud Sci. 2016 Dec;46(6):833-853. doi: 10.1177/0306312716669251. Epub 2016 Oct 22.
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.
本文探讨了在世界上唯一一个可以在自然环境中研究野生倭黑猩猩（Pan paniscus）的地区——刚果民主共和国的赤道雨林中进行科学实地研究的感官维度。如果正如感官人类学家所主张的那样，感官是在特定的文化和环境背景中发展、成长和磨练的，那么实地科学家是如何在一个起初并不熟悉的世界中逐渐熟悉起来的呢？本文建立在先前人类学和哲学对习惯化的探讨之上，这些探讨批判性地审视了灵长类动物学家试图成为“环境中的中性物体”以便让野生猿类习惯其存在的尝试。文章通过追踪欧洲和北美研究人员在这些森林中追踪倭黑猩猩时所发展出的身体注意力模式来进行探讨。其论点是，随着环境、生物及其元素变得熟悉，它们并非变得“中性”，而是充满了意义。
