In November 1953, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, AP Wadsworth, responded to Jodrell Bank Director Bernard Lovell regarding a complaint over an article that had appeared on the observatory's radio telescope project. Wadsworth understood there had been much collaboration between Lovell and his journalists in regard to the construction of the article and so the complaint suggested that there was 'far more to it (production) than appears on the surface'. Many scholars of science and the media point to the importance of uncovering the context of production from which popular science emerges in interactions between science and media actors. However, these and many other scholars also point to the difficulty of symmetrically unravelling the production context because of the complexities of such interactions and the diverse actors and agendas at play. To view and draw out these complexities, I employ the analytical flexibility and utility of space science as a lens because the production of popular space science was of interest, and valuable, to diverse scientific and media actors. I also use a broad and triangulated selection of primary sources, including from the often-elusive media context, to explore episodes of contingency where agendas and approaches are revealed. I hypothesise the notion of a 'common arena' to aid understandings of the context of production of science and the media. Within this common arena scientists, media professionals and science-mediating specialists met to negotiate the production of popular scientific representations. Scientific and media culture and science-mediating specialists sought authority over and identities within the arena through 'contributory expertise'. In such negotiations, popular scientific representations became a form of 'boundary object'. Across the middle of the twentieth century, and especially in the space age, popular space scientific representations were prestigious and high-profile and the subject of much negotiation. In many ways, the media gained much at the expense of science by redrawing the arena, exploiting science in the way that science sought to exploit the media. On reflection the arena is too simplistic a concept to support the rich narrative history and, in future, it is hoped, will be surpassed by a more constructivist encounter model that characterises interactions and developments at the science-media interface. Despite these limitations, two supplementary arguments emerge from the empirical application of the arena concept. Firstly, that the 'problem' of science and the media is historical and its origins long precede the political movement of the same name of the 1970s. In fact, the problem originated in the 1930s as soon as the traditional authority over the production arena enjoyed by scientific culture, and celebrity scientists such as cosmologist James Jeans, was challenged by media professionals. The Council of the British Interplanetary Society identified it, for example. Motivated by increased public demand for popular scientific material and intensifying competition among media industries, print and broadcasting media professionals extended their cultural authority over the common arena. This extension was facilitated because technological developments, such as satellite broadcasting, further restricted membership of the arena to those who understood the demands of media technique and were committed to serving the interests of audiences rather than science; in sociological terms arena and production authority was 'reduced' to media culture. Such developments reduced the ability of experts to directly address audiences and, thus, the influence of scientists over popular representations of science. In other words, mediation was a threat to the social authority of science. However, this problem was not mobilised into a movement because the relationship between scientific and media actors remained somewhat deferent and symbiotic. This fluidity allowed the likes of radio astronomer Lovell to continue to popularise, at least for a time. Another reason why the problem was not mobilised, and comprising the second supplementary argument, was the development of science-mediating specialists as 'boundary spanners'. Public eagerness for popular science, and the tensions between scientific and media culture for authority over its production, provided the opportunity for new social identities to emerge in the arena. Science writers such as JG Crowther, Ritchie Calder, and John Maddox, and science broadcasters such as Mary Adams, Aubrey Singer, and James McCloy, developed who mediated between, and were expert in and partisan to, both media and science; they were intercultural boundary spanners. However, the extension of the cultural authority of the media over the arena meant that membership of the arena became predicated on producing copy and programming that served the commercial interests of the media. Combined with, and reflecting, growing popular ambivalence with science, such pressures on science writers and broadcasters to actively challenge the social authority of science were the catalyst for the mobilisation of the problem movement by the scientific establishment. This movement sought to redraw production arena authority and re-establish the influence of scientists over popular scientific representations, as with Beagle 2.

Dans l’ère technoscientifique la valeur du corps est directement liée à sa production rationnelle produit dans les laboratoires scientifiques. Notre investigation empirique cherche à découvrir la relation entre les expériences de laboratoire et ce que nous délimitons comme body hacktivism, body hacking ou piratage du corps, qui sont basées sur une perspective ludique et exploratoire, réalisées par des amateurs scientifiquement inclinées, dont le but est d’amplifier les limites sensorielles de l’homme. Les body hackers sont dans le registre de la production de soi dans un individualisme radical qui a, en tant que unité d’analyse principal, l’individualisation croissante et la propriété de son corps comme des mesures fondamentales. Ensuite, la symbiose de l’individu avec l’environnement, grâce aux nouvelles technologies, a crée une perception unique dans laquelle un élément inorganique devient le médiateur de l’expérience de soi et le rapport à l’autre. Finalement, ils sont unis d’une manière telle que l’individu ne fait qu’un avec elle. / In the present technoscientific era, body value is directly related to its rational production in scientific laboratories. Our empirical investigatoin seeks to discover the relationships between laboratory experiments and what we identify as body hacktivism, body hacking, which stand for a playful and exploratory extreme body modification perspective, performed by scientifically-inclined amateurs whose purpose consists of amplifying a person’s sensory limits. Our principal argument is that body hackers are on record for self-production in a radical individualism that has, as a privileged analytical unit, the growing individualization and the self-ownership of the body as its fundamental measures. The body hacking draws our attention to the understanding of a scientific reality: if one day nature granted man a body, to have currently, it is fundamental to overcoming this biological event, endlessly seeking its improvement, until the day that man will attain the chimera of perfection and immortality. / O corpo humano está agora enredado numa trama muito particular, característica de nossa era tecnocientífica: seu valor e seu destino estão submetidos aos processos racionais e às novas técnicas que são continuamente desenvolvidas nos laboratórios. A partir de uma visão algo utópica, muito além de uma simples materialidade orgânica, as fronteiras da corporalidade estão assim sendo radicalmente questionadas e transformadas. E, neste passo, os conhecimentos científicos e sua mística transbordam seus campos estritos de aplicação, para alcançar e mobilizar o desejo e a vontade de indivíduos e do público em geral. Em nosso trabalho, buscamos investigar a relação entre as experiências de laboratório e aquilo que identificamos como o panorama underground de tecnologização do corpo. Procuramos assim circunscrever certas modificações corporais extremas, definidas como body hacktivism, body hacking ou pirataria do corpo, que se fundam numa perspectiva lúdica e exploratória, realizadas por amadores com o propósito de ampliar os limites sensoriais do homem. Tal reapropriação individual das tecnologias se converte, então, em inovações e em práticas inusitadas, por exemplo: implantes de microchips RFID, de magnetos, de vibradores genitais ou placas de titânio para substituir a pele, e mesmo próteses robóticas feitas com peças de Lego. A pesquisa de campo foi empreendida entre 2011 e 2013, em contato com vários praticantes selecionados na Europa, nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil. A metodologia qualitativa privilegiou a aplicação de entrevistas semiestruturadas e visitas a lojas de tatuagem/piercing, hotéis, eventos e seminários. O objetivo desta tese é, portanto, compreender qual corpo os body hackers constroem para si e projetam para os outros, explorando assim suas concepções acerca do sujeito humano. O argumento principal é de que os body hackers, por suas palavras e suas práticas, reverberam a mesma ontologia radical do individualismo moderno, ao tomar o indivíduo como a unidade social básica e a apropriação de seu próprio corpo como a relação fundamental. A simbiose do corpo com artefatos variados, que as novas tecnologias possibilitam, faculta ao indivíduo percepções exclusivas, nas quais os elementos inorgânicos se tornam não apenas mediadores da experiência pessoal, mas uma extensão ou parte articulada de si mesmo. Em suma, a tecnologia inserida no corpo além de modificá-lo, também transforma a forma de perceber, de estar e de ser-no-mundo. A pirataria do corpo, enfim, chama a atenção para uma realidade insofismável: se um dia a natureza concedeu aos seres humanos um corpo, para tê-lo, atualmente, é preciso superar o simples evento biológico e buscar incansavelmente o seu aperfeiçoamento, a quimera extraordinária de uma perfeição e de uma imortalidade vindoura.

Comment humains et chimpanzés définissent et brouillent les frontières entre leurs espèces lors de leurs interactions ? Tel sera le leitmotiv de notre étho-ethnographie, à l’intersection de l’anthropologie sociale, des études des sciences, et de la primatologie. Au fondement de cette recherche se trouve un travail de terrain de longue durée mené dans un laboratoire de sciences cognitives situé au Japon, au sein duquel sont enseignées aux chimpanzés des compétences langagières dans le but de caractériser leur monde perceptuel. Cependant, au cœur même du contexte ce laboratoire, la nature des relations entre humains et chimpanzés est un aspect crucial de ce programme de recherche ; les deux espèces y forment une communauté hybride faite d’affects, de relations sociales et de collaboration scientifique. Afin de fournir une étude comparative, nous avons également mené une série d’ethnographies plus brèves – sur le modèle de la méthodologie multi-site – en observant cette même problématique à l’œuvre au sein de diverses institutions au Japon - zoo, sanctuaires et réserves - ainsi qu’au sein de la station japonaise pour l’étude de la culture des chimpanzés qui se trouve à Bossou, en République de Guinée. En outre, ce travail narre l’expérience que nous avons faite de devenir expérimentatrice au sein du laboratoire étudié. Le résultat en est multiple. Nous commencerons par explorer l’histoire des études sur les chimpanzés menées à l’Institut de Recherche sur les Primates de l’Université de Kyoto (KUPRI) ainsi que les pratiques de soin et de recherche qui s’y sont mises en place. Ensuite, nous étudierons les dynamiques qui caractérisent (1) les frontières physiques, lors d’interactions sociales entre deux espèces qui peuvent s’avérer dangereuses, (2) les frontières expérimentales, lorsque le chimpanzé n’est pas seulement celui qui fait l’objet d’une expérience mais qui met également à l’épreuve son expérimentateur, (3) et les frontières symboliques, lorsqu’est interrogée la définition de la « personne » humaine et non humaine. Ainsi, quatre points principaux sont examinés à nouveaux frais, en particulier (a) la socialisation interspécifique (b) l’incarnation des relations inter-espèces dans un espace donné (c) les relations inter-espèces dans un contexte scientifique (d) l’examen de perspectives zoocentrées sur la « personne ». Nous conclurons avec l’évocation de nos espoirs et de nos attentes quant à un dialogue fructueux entre les différentes disciplines en jeu. L’apport de ce travail consistera en effet à mobiliser des concepts et des outils de la primatologie et des sciences sociales afin de proposer une analyse plus symétrique des relations entre humains et animaux. / How do humans and chimpanzees set and blur boundaries between species when interacting with each other? This is the leitmotif of this etho-ethnography at the intersection of social anthropology, social studies of science and primatology. This endeavor is based on long-term fieldwork conducted in a cognitive sciences laboratory in Japan, which teaches chimpanzees language-like skills as means to understand their perceptual world. However, in this laboratory setting, the human-chimpanzee relationship is a vital part of the research philosophy and both species constitute a hybrid community of affections, social relationships, and scientific partnering. As a comparative effort, a short-term multi-sited ethnography was conducted following the theme across institutions in Japan of zoo, sanctuary and field-site type, in addition to the Japanese field station for the study of chimpanzee culture, in Bossou, Africa. Moreover, this work draws on the experience of becoming, at the same time, an experimenter in the targeted laboratory. The result is multifold. We shall explore first, the history as well as the caretaking and research practices in chimpanzee studies at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University (KUPRI). Then, we shall investigate the dynamics of physical boundaries in dangerous interspecies social interactions; the experimental boundaries of testing and being tested by chimpanzees; and the symbolic boundaries concerning human and nonhuman personhood. As a result, four major points are brought to light in a renewed perspective, namely (a) interspecies socialization (b) the embodiment of interspecies social relations in space (c) interspecies social relations in scientific settings (d) animalcentric perspectives on personhood. We conclude with the hopes and prospects for a fruitful dialogue across disciplines. Overall, the differential endeavor of this work consists in mobilizing concepts and tools from both primatology and social sciences to propose a more symmetric analysis of the human-animal relationship.