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Biologies of betrayal: Judas goats and sacrificial mice on the margins of Mexico

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Abstract

Invasive species are the subject of much debate and attention. Social scientific analyses of alien species have focused on rhetoric about invaders, arguing that the discourse about invasive species reflects how people think about nature, culture and agency. In this article, I argue for a focus not only on discourse, but also on what happens in practice in the encounter between field scientists and invasive animals. Through ethnographic fieldwork on Guadalupe Island in Mexico, I analyze both the place of islands in the Mexican nation and invasive species eradication programs as examples of ‘care of the pest’, that is, projects in which scientists carefully tend to invasive organisms in order to produce knowledge about them. This knowledge is then used against the animals to exterminate them in a ‘biology of betrayal’, and occasionally, animals are enlisted into these projects to aid scientists in eradicating fellow members of their species. This article shows how changing perceptions of the value of island ecologies affected the use of the land and the fates of the animals on Guadalupe Island as the island was variously configured as laboratory, field site and slaughterhouse.

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Notes

  1. “Cuatro Jinetes del Apocalipsis”.

  2. “Comenzó a desintegrarse el tejido social. Subió la delincuencia y hoy hay un problema grave de seguridad. Todo como consecuencia de una especie invasora”.

  3. “Voraz, está programado genéticamente para comer todo lo que pueda … este animal africano, excesivamente fértil …. similares a una horda de roedores, no temen al ser humano y saltan y se pelean para obtener cualquier alimento que se les arroja”.

  4. “Un valioso patrimonio nacional … un irremplazable capital natural en términos de biodiversidad”.

  5. “Un recurso estratégico de gran valor para el país”.

  6. All interviewees are identified by pseudonyms in this article.

  7. “Algunas de estas dependencias incluso han considerado a las cabras como una consecuencia positiva al verlas como un recurso valioso con germoplasma único (la especificidad de una raza de cabras adaptada a condiciones difíciles), que puede ser exportado y utilizado por las poblaciones humanas que necesitan alternativas de alimentación. Sin embargo, este argumento no es realmente lógico. El valor de este nuevo “linaje” (germoplasma) de cabras no es comparable con la naturaleza única de las plantas nativas y endémicas de Isla Guadalupe”.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Stefan Helmreich, Harriet Ritvo, Jean Jackson, David Jones, Nathan Hogan and members of the History, Anthropology, and STS seminar at MIT and the Political Ecology Working Group at Harvard for reading and commenting on drafts of this article. This work has been supported by the Wenner Gren Foundation and the National Science Foundation. I am especially grateful to all the members of the Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, who showed me their work, answered my questions and introduced me to the islands of Mexico.

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  1. History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA

    Emily Mannix Wanderer

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This article has been corrected since Advance Online Publication and corrigendum is also printed in this issue.

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Wanderer, E. Biologies of betrayal: Judas goats and sacrificial mice on the margins of Mexico. BioSocieties 10, 1–23 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2014.13

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