Place, Practice and Primatology: Clarence Ray Carpenter, Primate Communication and the Development of Field Methodology, 1931–1945

Abstract

Place, practice and status have played significant and interacting roles in the complex history of primatology during the early to mid-twentieth century. This paper demonstrates that, within the emerging discipline of primatology, the field was understood as an essential supplement to laboratory work. Founders argued that only in the field could primates be studied in interaction with their natural social group and environment. Such field studies of primate behavior required the development of existing and new field techniques. The practices and sites developed by American primatologist Clarence Ray Carpenter were used to demonstrate that scientific standards could be successfully applied to the study of primates in the field. In an environment in which many field biologists fought for higher scientific status, Carpenter gradually adopted increasingly interventionist techniques. These techniques raised epistemological problems for studies whose value rested on the naturalness of the behaviors observed. Thus, issues of status shaped field practices and subsequently altered Carpenter's criteria for what constituted natural primate behavior.

Ethics of Primate Fieldwork: Toward an Ethically Engaged Primatology

“…His contributions to field primatology, however, extended beyond this one field expedition. Carpenter is widely recognized as advancing the methodological rigor of primate field studies, thereby positioning field primatology as valid scientific research (Montgomery 2005). He developed systematic data collection methods, advanced the use of technology in the field, established the process of habituating primates to human observers as a critical first step in primate fieldwork, and was the first to engage in long-term and multidisciplinary field research of primates (Carpenter 1964).…”

Naming the Ethological Subject

“…For larger animals, collars, tags, and other artificial marks of various kinds were increasingly used to study a wide variety of animals in the field. These technical developments can be seen as one consequence of the efforts of ecologists and ethologists in the mid-twentieth-century to bring laboratory-like rigor into studies of nature in the field, but they also drew directly on and helped to refine long-standing traditions within field biology and natural history (Kohler 2002 and 2006; Montgomery 2005; Rees 2009, 25–46; De Bont 2015).…”

Patterns of Infection and Patterns of Evolution: How a Malaria Parasite Brought “Monkeys and Man” Closer Together in the 1960s

“…In other words, most early attempts to infect monkeys with human malaria failed (Hegner, 1928, p. 238). To make matters worse, the challenges of procuring and maintaining healthy populations of nonhuman primates for experimental use were nearly insurmountable until the mid-twentieth century, when breeding colonies in the United States were established (Carpenter, 1940;Schmidt, 1979;Rawlins and Kessler, 1986;Dukelow and Whitehair, 1995;Montgomery, 2005).…”

“…117-120) describes the general increase in the use of primates, especially rhesus macaques, in the first half of twentieth century. Also, see again, on the topic of breeding colonies of primates: Carpenter (1940), Rawlins and Kessler (1986), Dukelow and Whitehair (1995) and Montgomery (2005). 9 See, for example, Packard (2010, pp.…”