Representing liminalities and contradictions: the ontological dynamics of rodent figuration in experimental laboratories

• Grant number: 25/09912-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden
• Grantee: Cassiel Nikolaou Renó Machado
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project seeks to analyze the images of rodents produced and displayed in laboratory spaces of research groups that use animal experimentation. The recurrence of anthropomorphized and infantilized representations of rats and mice, which are relatively common in laboratories, seems to corroborate the conclusions of other ethnographic experiments which claim that intersubjective aspects and moments of anthropomorphization are also present in laboratory relationships between humans and rodents - as opposed to the formal discourse of scientists which is usually restricted to an instrumentalist and objective view of the "uses" of animals in research. We therefore intend to discuss the figuration of rodents as a motto for the shuffling of different ontological conceptions attributed to animals. To this end, we will address theories critical of the naturalistic distinction between nature and culture, which seems to be somewhat subverted in the figurations to be analyzed.We will also look at other theoretical fields, namely social studies of science, since the laboratory and research context provides specific contours for the interaction - both "body to body" and symbolically mediated by image representations - between scientists and experimental animals. Finally, we seek to articulate these theoretical discussions with the observation of everyday laboratory life and its rodent figures, and with formal and informal interviews with scientists, in order to explore how images and discourses contribute to the production of a specific visual narrative about rodents. We hope that the description of this narrative, impregnated in the representations of rodents, will provide us with clues for thinking about the ways in which experimental scientists negotiate - with themselves and with others - their own practice.