Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gender and Society - Hardcover

How have our conceptions of primate behaviour and society changed since primatology came into its own after World War II? What kind of science is primatology, and what role have women scientists played in its development? "Primate Encounters" represents a pioneering attempt to answer these questions by bringing together two groups of scholars who often ask them: scientists and those who study them. The result is a fascinating and provocative collective reflection on primatology and on science in general, and on the relations of both broader cultural, historical and social issues. Beginning with a history of ideas about primate society, the book continues with personal reflections from senior primatologists who have lived that history. Other chapters reveal the diversity of "primatologies" that exist outside North America, compare the history of primatology to that of closely related disciplines such as archaeology and animal behaviour, and examine the roles that gender, media, society and technology have played in the development of the field. With contributions by a number of well known scholars in both primatology and science studies, including Donna Haraway, Alison Jolly, Bruno Latour and Robert W. Sussman, "Primate Encounters" demonstrates the exciting possibilities that arise when scholars from both sides of the "science wars" trade ideas rather than insults. The book also includes a selection of informal e-mail exchanges that allows readers to experience firsthand some of the lively discussions generated by such a diverse group of contributors.

Shirley C. Strum is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She is coeditor of The New Physical Anthropology, Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community-Based Conservation, and Almost Human A Journey into the World of Baboons. Strum has studied olive baboons in Kenya since 1972 and is director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project. Linda Marie Fedigan is professor and Canada Research Chair in Primatology and Bioanthropology at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is also the past Executive Editor of the American Journal of Primatology and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.