macaques

“There is always some moment when other-than-human life bursts into presence amid the clamor of urban routine.” —Maan Barua, Lively Cities

One of the fundamental dimensions of urbanization is its radical transformation of nature. The book Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology departs from conventions of urban studies to argue that cities are lived achievements forged by a multitude of entities, drawing attention to a suite of beings, human and nonhuman, that make up the material politics of city making. From macaques and cattle in Delhi to invasive parakeet colonies in London, author Maan Barua examines the rhythms, paths, and agency of nonhumans across the city. Barua is joined here in conversation with Sandra Jasper.

Maan Barua is a university lecturer in human geography at the University of Cambridge.

Sandra Jasper, a geographer and urbanist, is assistant professor of geography and gender at Humboldt University of Berlin.

References:

Matthew Gandy

Tom Fry

Garry Marvin

Vinciane Despret

Anindya Sinha

ARCH+ exhibit Cohabitation: A Manifesto for the Solidarity of Non-Humans and Humans in Urban Space (https://archplus.net/de/cohabitation-EN/)

Yi-Fu Tuan

Deleuze

Charles Elton

Marx

Laura Fortunato

Sylvia Federici

Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology is available from University of Minnesota Press.

The macaques can tell us a lot about how our status in society affects our wellbeing. 

JAMES HIGHAM talks about the evolution and ecology of nonhuman primates as well as the ethics and politics involved in long-term fieldwork with: rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, which was wiped out by Hurricane Maria in 2017; and the movements of the people and cattle at Gashaka Gumti in Nigeria. He is interested in variation and sexual selection, and the urgent question around conservation.

Higham works across the fields of primatology and Anthropology at New York University where he also leads the Primate Reproductive Ecology and Evolution Group. 

Humans assign value to brands. Brands represent wealth, strength, and yes, sex. We are our brands. And for some rhesus macaques in a lab, one brand, Adidas, represents monkey genitalia. The researchers paired dominant male faces, subordinate male faces, and female hindquarters with some brand logos, then paired scrambled images with other brand logos. “We know how social rewards can be processed differently compared to primary rewards like food or water,” the study’s first author M. Yavuz Acikalin in the Stanford Graduate School of Business told Gizmodo. “Essentially, what this is looking at, ‘is can monkeys also associate the rewards with arbitrary stimuli, and create associations more directly though conditioning.’” Jeff and Anthony discuss monkeys and business.

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Today’s story was sent in by James Gerstner: https://www.popsci.com/how-much-super-bowl-sweat

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For the first time, scientists say they created cloned primates using the same complicated cloning technique that made Dolly the sheep in 1996. Shanghai scientists created two genetically identical and adorable long-tailed macaques. Researchers used modern technology developed only in the last couple of years to enhance the technique used to clone Dolly, which is called somatic cell transfer. Jeff and Anthony giggle childishly at some of the funny sounding words.

GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns

Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop

Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen.

Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcerns

Or, you can send us mail! Our address:

We Have Concerns c/o WORLD CRIME LEAGUE
1920 Hillhurst Ave #425
Los Angeles, CA 90027-2706

Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata
Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni

Today’s story: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/health/cloned-monkeys-study/index.html

If you’ve seen a story you think belongs on the show, send it to wehaveconcernsshow@gmail.com, post in on our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeHaveConcerns/ or leave it on the subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/wehaveconcerns