The Department of Anthropology will host another installment in our Proseminar Speaker Series. Michelle A. Rodrigues, Ph.D., (Marquette University) will present a talk titled "Victorian Lizards & Promiscuous Primates: Reconsidering how Historical Cultural Contexts Shape our Understanding of Bonobo Sexuality."

Abstract

Two key paradigms in studying primate behavior are sexual selection and behavioral ecology. These theoretical frameworks guided early research and shape how we continue to generate hypotheses, develop methodology, and conduct our research. However, these paradigms are shaped by cultural perspectives of the scientists who developed them, from the Victorian norms infused in Darwinian theory, to the capitalist economic framework shaping behavioral ecology theory in the 1960s & 1970s. Early career scientists across anthropology and comparative biology are currently bringing critical approaches to reassess how scientist’s assumptions shaped foundational work, and how we may inadvertently continue to perpetuate those biases in our research design. Here, I consider an example of how Victorian cultural norms shaped scientists understanding of lizard behavior and consider how similar dynamics may occur in primatology. Using bonobos as a case study, I examine how the history and cultural context of wild and captive research shape our understanding of their sociosexual behavior. Using data from captive bonobos, I present data on the sociosexual networks of male and female bonobos and reconsider how these findings fit into existing and new theoretical frameworks.