Chapter 8 - The Material Practices of Ape Language Research

Summary

This chapter talks about a special population of non-human primates whose abilities and social competencies deserve the attention of cultural studies. It explains a long-term investigation of language, culture, and tools in a society of bonobos (Pan paniscus) having lived in Decatur, Georgia for the last 25 years. The chapter discusses the culture theory based upon the empirical and ethnographic facts of ape language research (ALR). The idea of ethnographic accounts with nonhuman primates is new, and perhaps startleling to ethological and cartesianist perspectives. One must consider that Vygotsky's idea of zone of proximal development (ZPD) is an effect with continuity within, at least, Pan and Homo. The ZPD is the critical radius upon which enculturation occurs. The effects are total and permanent and preempt biology. This idea is part of the explanation of why researchers observe so many different outcomes with culturally different groups of chimpanzees or bonobos.