ABSTRACT
It is possible to suggest several reasons why primatologists, male and female, younger and older alike, reacted so negatively to the book. First of all, as noted by Callan (1990) and Cartmill (1991), the deconstructionist analysis practiced by Haraway can be seen as a hostile act that challenges the authority of the scientist. Her fundamental assertions that facts are relative, that science is a form of story-telling, that sociopolitical forces have a major impact on how science is done, are deeply disturbing to many scientists. Secondly, Haraway is an “outsider,” who, like a journalist with an agenda, reported a version of the history of primatology with which many of the people who lived that history cannot concur (e.g., Dunbar 1990; Rodman 1990; Small 1990). Thirdly, Primate Visions frustrated many readers because it is written in a prose that is inaccessible to them, a writing style referred to by Alison Jolly as “armor-plated, post-modern, feminist jargon.” Haraway herself did not intend her analysis to be hostile to primatologists (1989:366), and she may well have been surprised by the extent and depth of negative response she received from its practitioners. Indeed, it could be argued that Haraway’s depiction of the history of primatology is that of a science becoming increasingly enlightened over time, especially, she implied, as more women entered the discipline. A thorough analysis of Donna Haraway’s Primate Visions and the reactions to it is beyond the scope of this chapter, but I would like to pursue here the point that feminist scholars liked and approved of
this book, and, in fact, many of them look very favorably on the discipline of primatology. Primatologists should be aware that Haraway is only one of a group of “science studies” scholars who are out there watching and evaluating scientists; turning the tables by following us around with tape recorders and notebooks.
