Kathleen Bryson Department of Anthropology, University College London Phd Thesis February 2017
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE EVOLVING BINARY: PERSPECTIVES ON INFRA- AND ULTRAHUMANISATION Kathleen Bryson Department of Anthropology, University College London PhD Thesis February 2017 1 I, Kathleen Bryson, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 For Mom and Dad 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Professor Volker Sommer: great supervisor, great friend and great ape. Studying with you has been everything I dreamed the idealised medieval intellectualism of doing a doctorate could be, in that I learned as an apprentice to your mastercraftsman. From one Pan sapiens to another, it has been a privilege to soak up your wisdom (I’m confident you secretly like my “feistiness”). Great thanks as well to my second supervisor Dr Christophe Soligo for his steadfast support with my multinomial logistic regressions and equally steadfast sense of humour (sorry we were such a dud bunch of teetotal noses-to- grindstone doctoral students; hopefully the next set will be more festive!); great thanks, too, to Drs Gemma Price, Matthew Thomas, Anna Barros, Jeroen Smaers and Lucio Vinicius of UCL for statistical help; Dr Clyde Arcano of King’s College; Chris Hagisavva in the UCL Anthropology Department for the computer support throughout these years; Martin O’Connor, Chris Russell, Paul Carter-Bowman, Yang Man, Keiko Homewood, Diana Goforth, Dan Newcombe and Shanaz Begum for all administrative helpfulness. A very special thanks to my parents Phil and Eileen Bryson for immeasurable support of all types, some of which cannot be quantified and some of which most certainly can be, and I am humble and grateful for all of it. Thank you for having National Geographics always lying around the house to pique my interest in evolution. This thesis is dedicated to both of you. Thanks too to my brother David (particularly for installing necessary programs on my latest computer), my brother Patrick, sister Karin and in-laws Ronette, Rob and Hyun-Mi for warm-hearted support; if we got to choose our families, you’d still all be my first choice. Special gratitude, Dad, to you with your mechanical heart-valve that lasted 49 strong years – and to the research dogs in the late 1950s and early 1960s who gave their lives so that you (and, by extension, we) could live; and for your inspiring interest in genealogical roots, history and evolutionary science. A wondrous thank you, with apologies to Woody Harrelson, to my goddess septetra: thank you, Mom, for ever-cheerful late-night pep talks that kept me ticking (my time zone) – your adventurousness and optimism has made our lives so exciting and so wonderful; thank you, sweet Karin, for always checking in; thank you, Venetia, for always being there for me; thank you, Sarah, for regular magic frogs by Royal Mail; thanks for bread and roses, cousin Rosie; thanks for the constant communication, Hélène and Claire! I lucked out in regards to families both biological and “fictional”; I know it. Thank you to my dear friends in the UK and abroad who have held my hand throughout this endeavour and inspired me, especially Alanna, Michael, Venetia, Rita, Sarah, Ali, Claire, Richard, Kerri, Carrie, Claudia, Bex, Hélène, Caroline, Kimmo, Chris, Nele, Jessica, Emma T, Conor, David M-M, Iona M-M, Matt, Martin N, Elia, Clive, Liz and Sophie; my dear Aiello Lab friends/labmates Gemma, Els, Katharine, Anna, Aalaa, Josephine, Zewdi, Gonçalo, Annas, Suzy, Shruti, Carole, Ally and Mike; UCL Primate Sexualities Research and Reading Group 2010-2016; Minding Animals 2012; Würzburg Summer School for Animal Studies 2013; Easy Readers Book Group; Hackney & East London Writers’ Circle; Stoke Newington Friends Meeting; my Spindle-and-Loomers; 5 Rhythms dance community; NLAH Monday- morningers, the 2010-2011 HBE MSc cohort; all UCL ANTH1014 and ANTH7009 undergraduate students 2010-2016, the City Lit Evolutionary Origins of the Great Apes 2016 course and all my UCL friends and colleagues: staff and fellow post-graduate students alike. A final huge thanks goes to true-altruistic readers Matt Thomas, David MacDonald-Medway, Iona MacDonald-Medway, Clauda Martin and Nadejda Josephine Msindai. 4 ABSTRACT We often pigeonhole our surroundings into dualistic categories, e.g., nature/culture. Perhaps evolutionary forces favoured dichotomous brains, or dualistic categories may be only social constructs. These lines of thought led to my research question(s): Do juxtaposed mechanisms of dichotomous black-and-white (essentialist) cognitive patterns exist; and, if so, how do such mechanisms affect cultural and scientific concepts of reality? My thesis focusses on four classic modes of othering (Human–Animal, Human–Machine, Male– Female, Heterosexual–Homosexual) oft-cited in biological anthropological studies, aiming to reconstruct the developmental forces that can bring about, stabilise or modify such binaries. My thesis therefore also is situated in discourses of sociology, psychology, animal studies, AI theory and gender/sexuality studies. I explored how rigid – respectively, fluid – the above exemplary alterities were by gathering data on the perceptions of their boundaries as reflected in electronic archives covering 16 years of newspaper reporting in the UK (1995–2010) and then subjecting this data to both a quantitative and qualitative analysis, measuring the fluctuation of ambiguity tolerance. My results strongly indicate similar temporal patterns of ambiguity tolerance across three out of four dichotomies – including a distinct “millennial effect” of intolerance – and a remarkably stable Male–Female dichotomy. This suggests firstly that received understandings of concrete descriptions in evolutionary theory such as “human”, “animal”, “species”, “tool (machine)”, “homosexual” and “heterosexual” may function as cultural concepts considered to be natural kinds, but also are temporally malleable in both popular and academic discourse; and, secondly, that we may have natal (arguably plastic) gender schemata. I show quantitatively and qualitatively that essentialist thinking – as expressed by ambiguity (in)tolerance in socially empowered individuals – functions as an infrahumanisation mechanism to protect one’s perceived ingroup, be that humans, males or heterosexuals. I argue instead for an ultrahumanisation that may allow for less anthropocentrism, less androcentrism and less heterocentrism. 5 DEDICATION p. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS p. 4 ABSTRACT p. 5 CONTENTS p. 6 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES p. 12 1. INTRODUCTION: “SET IN STONE?” p. 17 1.1. Introduction: Setting the Scene p. 17 1.2. Social Instructions, Scientific Prescriptions: p. 19 Fragile Boundaries, Randy Risk-Taking and Miracle Mules 1.3. Vivisection: The Psychological Perspective p. 22 1.4. Categorisation: The Philosophical Perspective p. 26 1.5. (Post)Construction: The Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives p. 27 1.6. Reconstruction: The Evolutionary Perspective p. 30 1.7. Deconstruction: The Political Perspective p. 31 1.8. Recapitulation and Definition: Central Terms p. 32 1.9. Predictions: Ambiguity Tolerance in British Newspapers p. 34 1.9.1. Predictions for Classic Dichotomies p. 34 1.9.1.1. Human–Animal p. 34 1.9.1.2. Human–Machine p. 35 1.9.1.3. Male–Female p. 36 1.9.1.4. Heterosexual–Homosexual p. 37 1.9.2. Predictions for Variables p. 38 1.10. Expansion p. 40 2. METHODOLOGY, METHODS AND MATERIALS: “MINING” p. 43 2.1. Exploring Boundaries: Rationale for a 1995–2010 UK Slice p. 43 2.2. Mining British Newspapers: Coding LexisNexis p. 44 2.2.1. Newspaper Selection p. 44 2.2.2. Sampling Substitutions p. 46 2.2.3. Author Categories p. 47 2.3. Quantifying Four Prominent Dichotomies p. 48 2.3.1. Human–Animal p. 49 2.3.2. Human–Machine p. 52 2.3.3. Male–Female p. 57 2.3.4. Heterosexual–Homosexual p. 60 2.4. Statistics p. 65 3. RESULTS: “REWIRED OR REASSURED?” p. 71 3.1. Congregated Papers and Congregated Dichotomies p. 71 3.1.1. Congregated Dichotomies and Years: Chi-squared p. 72 3.1.2. Congregated Newspapers, Dichotomy-by-Dichotomy p. 73 3.1.2.1. Human–Animal: Chi-squared p. 74 3.1.2.2. Human–Machine: Chi-squared p. 74 3.1.2.3. Male–Female: Chi-squared p. 74 3.1.2.4. Heterosexual–Homosexual: Chi-squared p. 74 3.1.3. Congregated Dichotomies: Multinomial Regression p. 79 3.2. Liberal vs Conservative p. 80 3.2.1. Liberal vs Conservative: Chi-squared p. 80 3.2.2. Human–Animal: Chi-squared, Liberal vs Conservative p. 85 3.2.3. Human–Animal: Multinomial Regression, MAM p. 86 3.2.4. Human–Machine: Chi-squared, Liberal vs Conservative p. 86 3.2.5. Human–Machine: Multinomial Regression, MAM p. 88 3.2.6. Male–Female: Chi-squared, Liberal vs Conservative p. 88 3.2.7. Male–Female: Multinomial Regression, MAM p. 89 3.2.8. Heterosexual–Homosexual: Chi-squared, Liberal vs Conservative p. 90 3.2.9. Heterosexual–Homosexual: Multinomial Regression, MAM p. 93 6 3.3. Broadsheets vs. Tabloids p. 94 3.3.1. Congregated Broadsheets and Tabloids: Chi-squared p. 94 3.3.2. Broadsheets and Tabloids: Multinomial Regression p. 96 3.3.3. Congregated Newspapers, Dichotomy-by-Dichotomy p. 96 3.3.4. Human–Animal: Chi-squared p. 100 3.3.5. Human–Machine: Chi-squared p. 101 3.3.6. Male–Female: Chi-squared p. 101 3.3.7. Heterosexual–Homosexual: Chi-squared p. 102 3.4. Individual Newspapers p. 103 3.4.1. Chi-squared: Individual Newspapers p. 103 3.4.1.1. Guardian/Observer p. 106 3.4.1.2. Independent/Independent on Sunday p. 106 3.4.1.3. Times/Sunday Times p. 107 3.4.1.4. Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday p. 107 3.4.1.5. Evening Standard/News of the World/Sun p. 107 3.4.1.6. Mirror/Sunday Mirror p. 108 3.4.2.