IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB512006477

Moving across the Zoo–Field Border: Heini Hediger in Congo (2022)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 113
Issue: 3
Pages: 491-512

URI: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721141

DOI: 10.1086/721141

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Biology Boundary work Zoology Belgium, colonies Zoos Field work Animal behavior 20th century Democratic Republic of the Congo Hediger, Heini

The twentieth century witnessed the rise of zoo biology. Such a discipline might seem anchored in a specific spatial setting (that of the zoological garden), but if historians want to understand its development they should not limit their view to the confines of the zoo grounds. After all, understanding animals and their behavior at the zoo often involved thinking about them in other spaces as well. Notably, the “artificial” state of animals in captivity invited reflection on their “natural” condition in the wild. In order to study the changing relation between science performed at the zoo and in the field, this essay conceptualizes a “zoo–field border”—arguing that movements across this border are crucial to understanding practices on both sides. In particular, the essay analyzes a field expedition to the national parks of the Belgian Congo set up in 1948 by Heini Hediger, the Swiss zoologist who is often credited as the pioneer of zoo biology. Hediger’s expedition, it argues, involved conceptual, methodological, and logistical border-crossing. The combination of these forms, then, ultimately enabled a rethinking of animals and their behaviors on both sides of the border.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB512006477/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Raf De Bont; (July 2017)
A World Laboratory: Framing the Albert National Park (/isis/citation/CBB327867560/)

Article Kutschera, Ulrich; (2005)
Predator-Driven Macroevolution in Flyingfishes Inferred from Behavioural Studies: Historical Controversies and a Hypothesis (/isis/citation/CBB000933657/)

Article Poreau, Brice; (2011)
Commensalisme, mutualisme, parasitisme, une preuve de l'Evolution pour Etienne Rabaud? (/isis/citation/CBB001220813/)

Article Cain, Joe; (2010)
Julian Huxley, General Biology and the London Zoo, 1935--42 (/isis/citation/CBB001022722/)

Book Dathan, Patricia Wendy; (2012)
The Reindeer Botanist: Alf Erling Porsild, 1901--1977 (/isis/citation/CBB001321143/)

Book Smellie, William; (2001)
Philosophy of Natural History (/isis/citation/CBB000102195/)

Article Ahmed Alwishah; (2016)
Avicenna on Animal Self-Awareness, Cognition and Identity (/isis/citation/CBB769958273/)

Thesis Marissa Helene Petrou; (2016)
Disciplines of Collection: Founding the Dresden Museum for Zoology, Anthropology and Ethnology in Imperial Germany (/isis/citation/CBB165310451/)

Article Stefano Gensini; (2017)
"E io in Napoli vidi un cane polacco…": ancora sui linguaggi animali, da Gesner a Campanella (/isis/citation/CBB435419422/)

Article Belozerov, Oleg P.; (2009)
From a Zoological Garden to a Zoo: The Moscow Zoological Garden in the First Post-October Decade (/isis/citation/CBB001421099/)

Chapter Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2009)
“The Experimental Animal from the Naturalist's Point of View”: Behavior and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History, 1928--1954 (/isis/citation/CBB001022524/)

Book Bont, Raf de; (2015)
Stations in the Field: A History of Place-Based Animal Research, 1870--1930 (/isis/citation/CBB001551940/)

Thesis Ilerbaig, Juan Francisco; (2002)
Pride in Place: Fieldwork, Geography, and American Field Zoology, 1850--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001562443/)

Book Gary Bruce; (2017)
Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo (/isis/citation/CBB706070750/)

Book Markwell, Kevin; Cushing, Nancy; (2010)
Snake-Bitten: Eric Worrell and the Australian Reptile Park (/isis/citation/CBB001033751/)

Article Lawrence, Natalie; (2012)
The Prime Minister and the Platypus: A Paradox Goes to War (/isis/citation/CBB001221612/)

Article Munz, Tania; (2011)
“My Goose Child Martina” (/isis/citation/CBB001220835/)

Article Crist, Eileen; (2004)
Can an Insect Speak? The Case of the Honeybee Dance Language (/isis/citation/CBB000651068/)

Book Celentano, Marco; (2011)
Konrad Lorenz e l'etologia contemporanea: l'eredità problematica di uno scienziato inattuale (/isis/citation/CBB001252728/)

Article Hanna Lucia Worliczek; (2022)
“How Many Individuals Consider Themselves to Be Cell Biologists but Are Informed by the Journal That Their Work Is Not Cell Biology” (/isis/citation/CBB286762573/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}