emotional detachment is most evident precisely at these moments when animals must be euthanized because, as she puts it, “so much of your work leads to death.” Early on in her job, she questioned the rhetoric of “sacking,” stating, “We are killing, and it’s not like anyone sees us, but then everyone says it, so, why not?” Within such a framework she now elides the depersonalization of animals with humans, as evident in her analogy of the “sacked” animal and the “sacked” football player in which she says, “You get rid of it and knock it out of the game” (italics added). To be honest, I had a strong averse response to her description of how mouse pups must be decapitated with scissors. Although this is indeed widely understood as among the most humane ways to kill mouse neonates,30 unlike descriptions provided by other, more seasoned lab personnel I know, Alicia emphasizes that she is “not stoked for it” while realizing that “it’s necessary for what we’re doing” and that she “should get over it.” Of equal importance to Alicia is her ability to respond and think like a young scientist, most clearly demonstrated by the excitement she expresses in being part of important research that could “prevent tumors.” As she learns the necessary hands-on skills, she simultaneously masters the emotional stance that makes one’s total immersion possible, even though, at least at this very early stage in her career, she may well be listening to “a lot of podcasts” while she works as a means to ease the process of emotional transition. If she proves successful, she will indeed “figure out how [she] feel[s] about science.”
Training the Monkey
As she begins her intended career as a research scientist, Alicia is still in the process of learning the basics of animal handling, breeding, and “sacking.” As Dr. Rose reveals, though, successful experimental work requires patterned, predictable precision on the part of the researcher and the animal. This patterned precision of human-animal partnerships is most apparent in the actions of seasoned researchers, and especially in contexts involving “sentient” species such as dogs and NHPs. The carefully calibrated motions that enable a researcher to work often for hours beside or in close proximity to a macaque, for example, demonstrate the exquisitely fine-tuned calibration of what might be thought of as paired habitus, or what Brendan Hart, in his work with parents of children with autism, describes as “joint embodiment” (2014). Consider this description from my field notes based on my observation, over the course of much of a day, of an encounter between Jaime, a third-year postdoctoral student in neuropsychology and a five-year-old adolescent male macaque named Rufus. Jaime and Rufus have worked together on average four hours per day, five days per week, for the last two years:
Before entering the lab, Jaime issues a set of instructions to me, articulated clearly and calmly, and in a quiet voice. As he explains, Rufus “likes to be alpha,” and whereas not all monkeys are like this, Rufus is most comfortable and happiest in this position vis-à-vis others. This experimental session (which includes preparing the research apparati, donning proper protective attire, retrieving Rufus, running the experiment itself, and returning Rufus to his enclosure) spans close to six hours. Throughout, Jaime’s instructions and actions to me reflect carefully thought out and applied best practices where Rufus’s needs and comfort zone are paramount. Because of Rufus’s alpha orientation, Jaime stresses, “Don’t look Rufus in the eye” because this would be read by Rufus as a threatening posture. Instead, I am instructed to look away or look down. Jaime explains this approach is generally a good idea with all the monkeys in this lab (and when I stand outside the door to the monkey enclosure room, I avert my gaze when the other curious inhabitants look straight at me). Jaime explains, too, that I should be quiet and not make any sudden movements. I was on the alert. I was thinking about my habitus.
After preparing a small, hand-held container of rewards for Rufus acquired from a fridge in a large storage room, Jaime retrieves a “chair” or boxy Plexiglas enclosure from a row of these lined up against one wall, checks to make sure all parts are in working order, and then weighs it. (He will soon reweigh it once Rufus is sitting within the “chair.”) We then cover our heads and faces with surgical caps, masks, and face guards and don lab coats, latex gloves, and booties; we will remain dressed this way as long as we are in Rufus’s presence. I then follow Jaime down the hall to the housing unit, a spacious room where both sides are lined with “enclosures” or cages that house approximately a dozen pairs of rhesus macaques. Rufus is located near the door (I remain in the outer hallway and peer through an observation window), and Jaime squats down before Rufus’s enclosure, slowly and methodically feeding Rufus grapes, each time waiting for Rufus to stretch out his arm to request food, palm up. (Earlier that morning Jaime had encouraged Rufus’s cage mate, Hatty, into another enclosure.) Jaime explains he had trained Rufus step by step to move from cage to chair, actions I am able to watch through the window. First, Jaime threads a long metal rod with a hook on the end into Rufus’s cage. Rufus, who wears a dog collar, slips the rod’s lead line through his collar ring and then, once Jaime opens the cage door, he gently guides Rufus, who slides with ease into the Plexiglas chair. All of this is done with a syncopated rhythm: Jaime’s and Rufus’s actions are strikingly methodical, consisting of small gestures, miniscule movements, and important tasks, each of which is punctuated with a reward of another grape. As Jaime explained later, Rufus is happiest when his routine is not disrupted. I write in my notebook, “by 8:30 am, the monkey is in the box.”
I note, too, that I am witnessing not just Jaime’s but Rufus’s habitus, paired actions that strike me at the time as “a methodical, prescripted dance” highly reminiscent of the work I was once trained to do long ago with dressage horses, where, if well calibrated and properly executed, observers should not be able to detect the rider signaling the horse. Indeed, as Jaime tells me later, the lab vet who trained him on how to train Rufus was an expert horse and show dog trainer who applies similar approaches to working with research macaques.
Throughout all of this, Jaime remains silent in Rufus’s presence and Rufus, in turn, does not vocalize, nor do any of the other monkeys in the room. I think later, just as the “paired monkeys” in the housing room are quiet, Jaime and Rufus are paired and quiet together, too. Jaime keeps Rufus calm by remaining quiet himself; they consistently mirror each other’s demeanor. Jaime wheels the “chaired” Rufus down the hall, sets up the experiment, and then instates Rufus in the experiment booth, a windowless, and relatively soundproof, black box sort of enclosure that is about the size of a spacious utility closet. Once Rufus is wheeled in place, he will sit for several hours before a computer monitor, rewarded with drops of water or diluted fruit juice (dispensed from a plastic tube mounted near his mouth) each time he successfully accomplishes the tasks put before him. (Tasks are tracked by way of eye movements by cameras mounted in the booth.) Rufus and Jaime remain silent in one another’s presence throughout the next four hours, save for two pivotal moments. The first is when Jaime, ready to initiate the experiment (where Rufus will be “put to work” in front of a computer screen), says to Rufus before closing the door to the somber and soundproofed room, “Have a great session, buddy!” and, again, once the experimental session has concluded, he says before opening the door, “Good job, Rufus!”—two phrases he explains he always says in the same way at the start and conclusion of every session to signal methodically and predictably to Rufus the onset and endpoint of the experimental encounter.
As paired researcher and research subject, Jaime and Rufus epitomize the process of lab domestication as a mutualistic process that binds them in a quasi-intimate and codependent relationship. In stark contrast to Amelia, who is only just now learning how to master the very basics of lab animal husbandry, Jaime’s actions exemplify the expertise that is required to work with a sentient species, and Rufus responds in kind. The skills required of Jaime in training a macaque like Rufus are built on years of earlier experience with other species: first hamsters, then pigs, and within the last three years, macaques. In contrast to another researcher who described “giving up on monkey work,” explaining, “I was never really sure whether I was training the monkey, or the monkey was training me,”31 Jaime draws on his apprenticeship with a horse and dog trainer to perfect a research partnership that demonstrates his ability to “think like a monkey.” This framework has its limits,
