| 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.
Diane M. Rodgers is an assistant professor of sociology
at Northern Illinois University. |
