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Diane M. Rodgers - Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects

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During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, natural and social scientists began comparing certain insects to human social organization. Entomologists theorized that social insects -- such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites -- organize themselves into highly specialized, hierarchical divisions of labor. Using a distinctly human vocabulary that reflected the dominant social structure of the time, they described insects as queens, workers, and soldiers and categorized their behaviors with words like marriage, slavery, farming, and factories. At the same time, sociologists working to develop a model for human organization compared people to insects, relying on the same premise that humans arrange themselves hierarchically. In Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects, Diane M. Rodgers explains how these co-constructed theories reinforced one another, thereby naturalizing Western conceptions of race, class, and gender as they gained prominence in popular culture and the scientific world.Using a critical science studies perspective not previously applied to research on social insect symbolism, Rodgers attempts to debug this theoretical co-construction. She provides sufficient background information to accommodate readers unfamiliar with entomology -- including in-depth explanations of the terms used in the research and discussion of social insects, particularly the insect sociality scale. The entire premise of sociality for insects depends on a dominant understanding of high/low civilization standards -- particularly the tenets of a specialized division of labor and hierarchy -- comparisons that appear to be informed by nineteenth-century colonial thought. Placing these theories in a historical and cross-cultural context, Rodgers explains why hierarchical ideas gained prominence, despite the existence of opposing theories in the literature, and how they resulted in an inhibiting vocabulary that relies more heavily on metaphors than on description. Such analysis is necessary, Rodgers argues, because it sheds light both on newly proposed scientific models and on future changes in human social structures. Contemporary scientists have begun to challenge the traditional understanding of insect social organization and to propose new interdisciplinary models that combine ideas about social insect and human organizational structure with computer technologies. Without a thorough understanding of how the old models came about, residual language and embedded assumptions may remain and continue to reinforce hierarchical social constructions.This intriguing interdisciplinary book makes an important contribution to the history -- and future -- of science and sociology.

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Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects
Diane M. Rodgers
Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects
Louisiana State University Press Picture 1 Baton Rouge
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2008 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
LSU Press Paperback Original
FIRST PRINTING
Designer: AMANDA MCDONALD SCALLAN
Typeface: WHITMAN, RD MONACO
Printer and binder: THOMSON-SHORE, INC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rodgers, Diane M., 1959
Debugging the link between social theory and social insects / Diane M. Rodgers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-3369-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Interpersonal relations. 2. Social structure. 3. Insect societies. 4. Sociology. 5. Entomology. I. Title.
HM1106.R634 2008
156dc22
2008017784
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Picture 2
Contents
Acknowledgments
I would like to sincerely thank the following people for sharing their expertise with me during the development of the ideas in this book: Ken Benson, Joan Hermsen, Tola Pearce, Wayne Brekhus, James Carrel, David N. Smith, and Mohan K. Wali. Their thoughtful suggestions and comments on the work enhanced it greatly. Much appreciation goes out to Althea Harris and Morgan Matsiga for bravely reading the earliest drafts.
I am grateful to Joseph B. Powell, Wesley Shrum, and Louisiana State University Press for their enthusiasm about publishing this book. Editor Joseph Powell has made this an exciting and interesting experience, offering invaluable guidance and cheerfully answering my many questions. I am extremely appreciative of the insightful remarks given by the anonymous reviewer, which strengthened the work. And many thanks to Susan Brady, copy editor extraordinaire.
For graciously helping me with my last-minute request for technical assistance and graphics troubleshooting, I am indebted to Mariano Spizzirri and Robert Banke. Stacy James contributed the original design of the hierarchy triangle. Alexandra Chapman and Megan Sprangers rescued me by helping with manuscript preparation.
Thanks to my friends/academic colleagues who offered needed advice, encouragement, and hours of conversation along the way: Matt Lammers, Theresa Goedeke, Carrie Prentice, Kathy Doisy, Mary Jo Neitz, La Tanya Skiffer, Soo Yeon Cho, Tola Pearce, Veronica Medina, and Nancy Turner Myers. To all my other dear friends who were so kind and understanding during this long process, I could not have finished this book without your support, companionship, and patience. And, as always, unending love and gratitude to MBF.
Debugging the Link between Social Theory and Social Insects
Introduction Social insects such as ants bees and wasps have captured the - photo 3
Introduction
Social insects such as ants, bees, and wasps have captured the human imagination and fostered numerous analogies to human social structure. In addition to being popular in the general public discourse, these analogies have generated theory and concepts within scientific literature. Specifically within the disciplines of entomology and sociology, the theory and concepts that liken social insect organizational structure to human organizational structure share an interesting history. A particular classification scale for social insects and the terminology that describes their behavior sprang from the interaction of the two disciplines during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The depiction of the organizational structure of social insects has been co-constructed through an interchange of ideas that reflects not only representations of natural phenomena, but also specifically human social and political concerns.
This depiction of social insects has varied based on the historical time period, political persuasion, and cultural location of its human creators. Although variations in these depictions and their interpretations exist, the discipline of entomology has adopted analogies and classification schemes that resemble Western bureaucratic organizational structures, particularly in the tenets of a specialized division of labor and hierarchy. Socially constructed hierarchies of race, class, and gender are found in the lexicon and classification of social insects; the entire premise of sociality for insects is predicated on a dominant understanding of high/low civilization standards and comparisons that appear to be informed by nineteenth-century colonial thought. Within the history of sociology, these same concepts and analogies were used to naturalize hierarchical human social structures. This historical interaction became a legitimating loop between the emerging disciplines of sociology and entomology, borrowing credibility from both the social and natural worlds.
Because of this correlation and the naturalization of these sociological theories and concepts, I approach the historical entomological and sociological literature using a theoretical framework that deconstructs these generally accepted ideas about sociality and social organization. This critical science theoretical framework is composed of post-Kuhnian, feminist, and postcolonial science studies. Given the type of hierarchical analogies found in the scientific discourse, each of these approaches has strengths to offer separately and combined within a critical science studies theoretical framework. Because naturalized accounts of the social structure tend to deemphasize the details of their historical and social creation, it is necessary to recover these origins through a critical discourse analysis. Fairclough (1995) describes this recovery process as one of denaturalization. A critical discourse analysis of the key entomological and sociological texts of the nineteenth and early twentieth century reveals the co-construction of analogies between social insects and humans that reinforced an interlocking hierarchical social structure.
One of my goals in this work is to give readers unfamiliar with entomology a better understanding of the field by providing sufficient background and contextualizing this information through historical and cross-cultural evidence. To this end, I present an in-depth explanation of the definition and terms used in the research on and discussion of social insects, including the insect sociality scale. Scales of sociality are by no means confined to entomology; since its inception, sociology used scales of sociality that generally reflected colonial viewpoints about civilized and primitive societies. I provide an overview of these nineteenth-century social evolutionary scales and their correlation to entomology. The generally accepted classification schemes, models, and terms in the dominant discourse are specifically Western and therefore situated in a Western worldview.
There have been previous analyses of social insect symbolism, analogies, and classification, but not from a critical science studies perspective. The use of that perspective in the analysis presented in this book will complement the growing body of entomological literature that is challenging the traditional understanding of insect sociality and social organization. As the entomologist Deborah Gordon frames the emerging issue, We need new ways of understanding the organization of social insect colonies (Gordon 1999, 67). Because analogies between social insects and humans are co-constructed, the reformulation of social organizational forms for humans is also a focus of this critical analysis. Understanding how human hierarchical structures were naturalized through comparison to natural models sheds light on future perceptions and changes in human social structures.
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