Article ID: CBB201138164

The Experimental Multispecies Household (2021)

unapi

Under what conditions have people in the past come to arrange their domestic lives more intentionally, and what role have the sciences played in this process? To address this question, this essay examines the transformation of human homes into experimental sites for the study of animal behavior. Between 1880 and 1920, the “insectarium” became both a popular toy and a key tool for the scientific study of the social insects. At the same time, social change and feminist politics were calling into question bourgeois norms of domesticity. In this context, the enterprise of domestic entomology took the rigid, seemingly timeless idea of a “natural home” and transformed it into a research question: how malleable were insects’ home-making instincts? The essay argues that the idea of behavioral plasticity as it emerged in entomology circa 1900 reflected and informed an experimental, multispecies approach to human homemaking. In this way, the essay demonstrates the value of studying the history of science together with the history of private life.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB201138164/

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Authors & Contributors
Elan Barenholtz
Chittka, Lars
Alexandra DeCesare
Stephen Hoover
Emily N. Stark
Dona, Hiruni Samadi Galpayage
Concepts
Animal behavior
Behavioral sciences
Entomology
Zoology
Evolution
Human evolution
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
Places
São Paulo (Brazil)
England
United States
Spain
Russia
Canada
Institutions
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Spain)
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