session 3

In Session 3 of the course, we took a step back somewhat from the deeply reflexive account on critiques of knowledge production in the social sciences that marked the first 2 sessions, to go back, as Prof. Gadagkar put it, to the ‘primer’ of a disciplinary activity that is a necessary first step to instituting any dialogue between disciplines. As he emphasized, the point of even reflexive activity is lost on the listener if the starting points and contexts are simply not known. And not knowing about knowledge-producing activity in other disciplines is the surest way to the ‘othering’ that follows – the assumption that knowledge-production does not happen at all in these other fields. It is to dispel these assumptions and challenge this attitude that Prof. Gadagkar proposed, at the outset, a sharing of information, as he set out to talk in some detail about the ‘how’ of his research activity, before embarking on a fuller discussion of the ‘why’ – why knowledge production proceeds in the ways that it does and with the particular objects of enquiry in the discipline/ field.

Prof. Gadagkar works with an insect. One of the reasons why such study could be fascinating, he averred, is that many species of non-human animals live in societies with organizational patterns very similar to humans and with more efficiency sometimes; more so many species of insects. They live in groups, they have strong bonds of recognition, they have division of labour – in building homes, finding food, rearing offspring - they communicate, they have co-operation and conflict. Lives of such insects – which are commonly found and not exotic – and Prof. Gadagkar did wish to make a point about anthropology here – could also be interesting simply for human beings as social beings too. Prof. Gadagkar went on to describe these insect lives with 2 running sub-themes – how to understand an insect society, and why we should bother to do this, and he attempted to do this with the minimum of disciplinary jargon. Prof. Gadagkar proposed this as the thing to do to initiate dialogue between disciplines in the first place. Following on a description of the life styles and choices of these insects, which makes these societies worth studying, Prof. Gadagkar went on to talk about the methodologies of this study. One of the first steps of this exercise would be as value-neutral a description as possible, for instance of various kinds of behaviour as a possible guide to personality [and this recalled some of the questions that came up in the last session on the point of description in methodology of the natural and social sciences]. This constitutes a quantitative study of behaviour, which is of course riddled with the pitfalls of taking into account only what we find interesting. We might however try to see if there is a pattern to behaviour, and if it has connections with the division of labour. Prof. Gadagkar went into a fascinating discussion thereafter of queen behaviour in paper wasps, the complete absence of violence in both her behaviour and her interactions with other members of the nest, and the general difficulty of finding evidences of conflict among nest-mates. He also told us how observation alone could not bring the evidence required to prove or disprove this hypothesis, and manipulation, or in-vitro situations, might be required to do the same. Devising experiments, and interpreting findings in the light of these manipulations is part of this exercise. This then is a way of asking a question of this society and designing a way to find an answer, and this touches upon the long debate of whether pristine observation is more desirable as the best way to find explanations, or even possible. The long discussion on queen behaviour as meek, potential queen behaviour as nasty in the absence of the queen, were all designed to point to the apparent presence of enormous co-operation, and almost complete absence of conflict in this society, and the question of whether conflict were indeed truly absent here. The division of reproductive labour between the workers and the queen in paper wasps is particularly interesting from the evolutionary point of view, and it is here that the absence of conflict too is intriguing. Is it true that her earlier aggression won acceptance from every other member of the nest? But how then does she maintain the condition, inhibit the workers from developing their reproductive apparatus? Here Prof. Gadagkar talked about how previous research and its findings could be usefully employed, and differently, to find answers to new questions. It is the case that different insect societies are classified into ‘primitive’ and ‘advanced’ societies, where physical aggression is a feature of queen behaviour in the former (both to inhibit worker reproduction and to make workers work) and not the latter. Advanced societies are really large and probably aggression is not useful behaviour to control the workers. Rather they seem to use a chemical weapon that ‘sterilizes’ the workers from developing their ovaries. But the paper wasp is a ‘primitive’ society. However, the queen is found here to use such a chemical weapon, and experiments designed with as effective controls as possible can demonstrate this. The experiment ultimately demonstrated that Ropalidia marginata queens appear to use a non-volatile pheromone beyond the first week of her life to inhibit worker reproduction. This led to a further question about how the queen regulates the non-reproductive activities of the workers. A speculative hypothesis based on conditions in advanced societies that it might be a ‘police force’ other than the queen (as in advanced societies) that does this, was helped along with the help of another series of observations that gave a series of mild associations. Experiments designed helped prove this somewhat more.

All of this gave an impression of more and more order, and no conflict. Is it limited to the first week in the life of the queen? Is this an index of conflict? Experiments and observations both denied this hypothesis. Is it then possible that this increased level of aggression in the first week is needed by the queen to boost her own physiology? This unlikely hypothesis was now entertained. Designed experiments proved this. Even in matters of queen succession, there appeared to be no conflict.

In the latter part of the session, Prof. Gadagkar concentrated on a question to which answers had not been found. The question is – who becomes the next queen? How is this decided? Can this be predicted? Observations and experiments failed to provide answers to these questions. Rather it was found that the potential queen is not unique by any means – either by behaviour, position in dominance hierarchy, or otherwise. Another question would be – do the wasps know who the heir designate is? This hypothesis actually was proved by experiments which looked for, and found, the logical consequence of such a hypothesis.

Which led us to the researchers’ success in finding examples of conflict – in inter-colony interaction. It was found through experiments that nestmates could be recognized and accepted, non-nestmates were not tolerated, even under laboratory conditions, young non-nestmates were better tolerated, admitted freely into the nest, old aliens were attacked if they came near the nest, the alien queen was attacked and dismembered. The resultant findings were that there was not evidence of intra-colony kin discrimination – war with insiders is not possible; war with outsiders is high. It is this dual strategy that accounts for the ecological dominance of insect societies, making them super-organisms.

Prof. Gadagkar went on to introduce the comparison to human beings, asking what we can learn from insect societies. There is of course a great tendency to make this comparison, but Prof. Gadagkar preferred to ask this question formally. He answered that the reason to make this study might be similar to why an anthropologist studies primitive human societies. He made it clear that imitating nature, or asking it for decisions, was not the point. The point rather, was to turn to nature to decide how to do something that we have already decided upon. Insect societies may help, too, to reflect on our own societies, in the ways that they do not do what we do, or do it differently from us.

Prof. Gadagkar went on to invite reflections on why we might study insect societies. In the discussion that followed, he was asked why he went to such great lengths to look for conflict. Prof. Gadagkar responded with the situation in other insect species where conflict is high, and the other perspective – human – from which absence of conflict seemed nearly absurd. Further questions related to the mandate and methodology of anthropology itself – the tendency towards processual study and if some of these insights would be taken into the study of insect societies. These discussions also suggested that while anthropology itself had moved from the study of the primitive to the study of the everyday, and thereby assumed a withdrawal from the ethical dilemmas of studying difference, sometimes necessitating a withdrawal from the cognitive encounter altogether, the suggestions implicit in the work presented might well propose a return to boldness in knowledge-making, realizing that failure was bound to be a part, and also the route to further cognitive encounters rather than a complete retreat into description.

What may be further suggested is that description is as unfree from the violences inherent in representation as experimentation might be.