Haraway's (1989, 1991) work on primatology demonstrates how the boundaries between nature and culture are
much more permeable than either biological or social scientists might suppose. The `traffic between nature and culture' (1989: 15), which she
illustrates through particular histories of the relationships between primates and those who studied them, puts into question the role of
`biological facts' as a domain separate from culture. Here scientific facts are shown not simply as `pure truths', placidly awaiting discovery in a
natural world, but as actively constructed by scientists whose work practices, gendered identities, and career paths situated them in particular historical and cultural milieus.
The view that scientific facts are as much made as they are discovered has radical implications because it runs directly counter to Western
assumptions about the `natural world'. As Franklin observes, the fact that the science of biology itself admits no distinction between physical
phenomena and the study of these phenomena marks a telling difference from social sciences such as anthropology. The conflation of the object to be known with the discipline of its observation and description performs the collapsing of knowledge with its object distinctive of modern Western scientific ways of knowing. Indeed, that is the definitively scientific `collapse': that objective knowledge in the sciences is so
transparent it is isomorphic with the reality it describes (1997: 56). Franklin argues that in the West the `facts' of biology symbolise not just
certain kinds of relationships called kinship ties, but the `possession of a particular form of knowledge which offers a particular access to truth'
(p. 208). There is a crucial link between a category of relations which is regarded as particularly powerful (and whose power is derived from
biological reproduction) and the power of science to determine the facts of this reproduction.
much more permeable than either biological or social scientists might suppose. The `traffic between nature and culture' (1989: 15), which she
illustrates through particular histories of the relationships between primates and those who studied them, puts into question the role of
`biological facts' as a domain separate from culture. Here scientific facts are shown not simply as `pure truths', placidly awaiting discovery in a
natural world, but as actively constructed by scientists whose work practices, gendered identities, and career paths situated them in particular historical and cultural milieus.
The view that scientific facts are as much made as they are discovered has radical implications because it runs directly counter to Western
assumptions about the `natural world'. As Franklin observes, the fact that the science of biology itself admits no distinction between physical
phenomena and the study of these phenomena marks a telling difference from social sciences such as anthropology. The conflation of the object to be known with the discipline of its observation and description performs the collapsing of knowledge with its object distinctive of modern Western scientific ways of knowing. Indeed, that is the definitively scientific `collapse': that objective knowledge in the sciences is so
transparent it is isomorphic with the reality it describes (1997: 56). Franklin argues that in the West the `facts' of biology symbolise not just
certain kinds of relationships called kinship ties, but the `possession of a particular form of knowledge which offers a particular access to truth'
(p. 208). There is a crucial link between a category of relations which is regarded as particularly powerful (and whose power is derived from
biological reproduction) and the power of science to determine the facts of this reproduction.
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