Quinn Georgic
01/19/2026 | Report-Backs
This post is the third in a four-part series on “Sex and Gender in Primate Worlds,” following up on a panel of the same name at the 4S 2025 convening in Seattle, Washington, held on September 6th, 2025. The following post in the series will be released on February 16th, 2026.
Entrance to the 30th International Primatological Society Congress, 2025, photo by the author.
Thirty years ago, the Wenner-Gren symposium, "The Changing Images of Primate Societies: The Role of Theory, Method, and Gender," brought together primatologists and science and technology studies (STS) scholars to understand the interplay between science and society, and the unique position of primatology in this relationship. The meeting and the resulting book highlighted the shared concerns of primatology and STS, exemplifying the productive possibilities between scientific practice and STS theory. Since the storied symposium, STS scholars have continued to probe the politics and epistemologies of primatological science. One such moment took place at the 2025 4S Conference in Seattle. In the panel "Sex and Gender in Primate Worlds," four fellow STS theorists of primatology and I reflected on the political and epistemological assumptions that are the conditions of possibility for primatological fact. Through the panel discussions and subsequent conversations, I found it particularly revelatory how primatologists have become, over the years, more attuned to the political nature of their work. It is this awareness – an awareness that I will meditate on below – that will further shape the STS of primatology moving forward.
Primate Politics and the Perks of Being Endangered
Two months before the 2025 4S conference, I found myself 10,000 miles away in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, at another conference: the 30th International Primatological Society Congress. I was attending the conference as part of my dissertation fieldwork, a study on how lemur scientists approach the ethics of fieldwork. Of particular interest to me at the conference were moments where primatologists underlined the political dimensions of their work. At no other point was this political dimension more precise than the conference meeting to determine the Top 25 Most Endangered Primates.
The Top 25 Most Endangered Primates is a biannual list released by the International Primatological Society to raise awareness of critically endangered species. While the name might suggest that these primates have the smallest populations among all primate species, in reality, the list is compiled differently. Population numbers are difficult to know with certainty, and many species of primates have numbers in the hundreds. Instead, numbers are largely sidelined to make way for more editorially striking reasons. The choice of which primate to include often took the form of responding to current geopolitical crises or cultural trends. These political responses frequently conformed to a species that is also critically endangered. For instance, a key reason for sustaining the Grauer’s Gorilla, found in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on the list was the continued violent conflict in their endemic region. By highlighting their plight, the speakers believed they might raise awareness of the conflict and contribute to the gorillas’ survival.
In some cases, the political message of an induction to the “Top 25” list actually outweighed concerns about the population. In the case of the Black and White Ruffed Lemur of Madagascar, a study presented at the IPS found that the species was being killed and sold through an underground economy across the country. Despite the greater number of Black and White Ruffed Lemurs than in many other lemur species on the island, the spokesperson noted that including this species on the list carried significant political weight. The IPS published a joint letter calling for stricter regulation of food trade and firearm sales shortly after the conference, and a New York Times article was published a few months later. In theory, this awareness will lead to broader care, funding, and conservation efforts for these lemurs; though primatologists acknowledge that research and conservation funding are currently limited, regardless of a species’ notoriety.
The Social Politics of Determining Endangerment
The conference hall where the Top 25 Most Endangered Primates panel was held was kinetic. Boisterous laughter bounced off the walls, joyful exclamations of reunions erupted here and there. Elsewhere, primatologists’ chatter provided a hum of white noise. There were staccato clangs of beer bottles as folks cheered over plates of pizza. The process occurred as follows: individual spokespeople representing four regions of primate habitats (Neotropics, Asia, Africa, and Madagascar) announced a provisional list that had been decided upon. Following the announcement, primatologists in the audience had the opportunity to advocate for the inclusion or exclusion of specific species on the list. If a species already receiving global attention were on the list, for instance, there would likely be dissent. If a species was removed from the list, there was vehement disagreement by the primatologists who studied it. Whether it is a solemn affair, or an “all-out brawl” (as described by one primatologist) depended on the year. With the increased media attention to the species that comprise the List, scholars have a vested (in some cases, material) interest in getting their species on it. The excitement and response to the panel highlighted its social nature. No primatologist interlocutor I spoke to had the impression that this was objective science (one described the whole event as “the world’s most depressing popularity contest.) In my interviews over the course of the conference, all acknowledged the political import of the moment.
The Reflexive Primatologist
While the Top 25 Most Endangered Primates panel is a uniquely performative example of the political nature of primatology, interlocutors discussed the political nature of primatology throughout my fieldwork. The field of Primatology, as a culture of expertise, appears increasingly open to conversations about its social nature. This openness appeared not just in my own private conversations with primatologists but was also reflected in IPS panels on primatology from the Global South, the parallels of Indigenous knowledges and primatology, and the racial and gendered particularities of conducting fieldwork.
Unlike the primatologist interlocutors of Donna Haraway’s groundbreaking Primate Visions, who vehemently opposed the work (one primatologist famously described it as “a book that clatters around in a dark closet of irrelevancies for 450 pages before it bumps accidentally into its index and stops”), contemporary primatologists I came across during fieldwork did not hesitate to acknowledge their political entanglements explicitly. Conversations around coloniality of the field, the limits of objectivity in science, and the positionality of researchers were not anomalies in the field.
Reflexivity as an Object of Observation
So where does that leave the STS scholar, who previously sought to unveil the political nature of supposedly apolitical science? Primatology in 2026 remains, of course, as entwined with politics as ever. What makes today’s discipline different, however, are primatologists’ extended conversations and awareness of these politics. In response, STS scholars must move beyond paranoid readings that merely seek to unveil the political nature of scientific disciplines. One way to do this is to analyze primatologists' reflexivity. This analytic shift presents new avenues of analysis for STS scholars. Scientists’ and researchers’ reflections, as STS’s object of observation, can provide a more nuanced portrait of fields of expertise today, painting these fields’ evolving political and ethical norms more accurately. By focusing on reflexivity, STS scholars can analyze how previous critiques of scientific disciplines have been metabolized and responded to by practitioners. Lastly, by acknowledging the work primatologists are already engaging in, we can foster a richer dialogue between STS and contemporary primatological theory.
Published: 02/02/2026