Article ID: CBB512006477

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

unapi

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.

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Authors & Contributors
Milam, Erika Lorraine
Bont, Raf de
Debora L. Silverman
Marissa Helene Petrou
Bruce, Gary
Smellie, William
Concepts
Zoology
Biology
Animal behavior
Zoos
Natural history
Evolution
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
Medieval
17th century
Places
United States
Germany
Australia
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Arctic regions
Moscow (Russia)
Institutions
London Zoo
Tiergarten Schönbrunn (Vienna)
American Museum of Natural History, New York
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