Koch, L., Svendsen, S. 2016. Back to Nature! Rehabilitating Danish Research Monkeys. In: Animal Housing and Human-Animal Relations: Politics, Practices and Infrastructures. Edited by K. Bjørkdahl and T. Druglitrø. Routlege: Abingdon, Oxon. Chapter 5 p. 67-81.

This chapter traces the integration of macaques as experimental organisms for polio in Norway during the 1960s and 1970s. Investigating the integration of macaque monkeys helps to craft an understanding of how political and scientific strategies have been constructed. The integration of macaques depended on care practices which ensure the co-conditioning, so to speak, of organisms, people, and infrastructures in order to prepare the necessary materials for combating polio in the laboratory. The chapter pays attention to the practices and infrastructures of care for conditioning the macaques, their organs and tissues as experimental organisms for polio research. It observes the macaques' ability to adjust to the new environments and investigating their bodies by performing necropsies and histological inquiries, was part of the attentive experimentation the tinkering necessary to learn and assess potential causes and risks. The changes in the architectural infrastructures and integration of new technologies were the results of tinkering in the animal house and caring for the macaques.

Year
2016
Topic