Welcome to my new blog Domestic/Wild. My name is Tarquin Holmes. I am a recent University of Exeter Philosophy PhD with interests in the history, philosophy and sociology of the life sciences, in particular the history of evolutionary and ecological thought. I also have an interest in the history of agriculture and husbandry, particularly the British ‘improvement’ movements of the early modern period.
My thesis, ‘Domesticating the Wild Type: A Historical Investigation of the Role of the Domestic-Wild Divide in Scientific Knowledge Production’, focused on the historical interaction(s) between changes in western philosophical and scientific conceptions of the domestic-wild divide and the utilisation of domesticating practices on experimental organisms as a means of producing naturalistic knowledge. My particular case-study was the concept of ‘wild type’ that emerged in the early 19th century and which came to play a prominent role in early genetics, where the standard inbred lab lineages of such important model organisms as the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster came to be referred to as ‘wild type’. ‘Wild type’ specimens were meant to stand in for the ‘normal’ instance of the species and acted as a reference standard in the lab against which mutant deviation from the ‘norm’ could be measured. I set out to explain how it could be that these highly domesticated and heavily selectively modified lab lineages could nonetheless be thought to ‘stand in’ for nature in the lab and thus to allow extrapolation of knowledge produced in the lab to wild nature beyond. Most of my thesis concentrates on examining the history of the wild type concept through situating it within the deeper history of conceptions of domestic and wild in western thought and of domesticating practices in life science research. In my conclusion I examine some of the errors and contradictions underlying assumptions about ‘wild type’ but also try to explain why, despite the many false assumptions underlying their creation, wild type lineages were nonetheless a mostly successful tool for investigating nature under controlled conditions and producing knowledge that could be extrapolated from this domestic and artificial context to wild nature generally. My thesis, for those interested, is now available on the University of Exeter’s open research platform ORE at: https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/21021
Regarding my general plans for this blog, I will be using it as a means of promoting my research and will hopefully be putting up some draft samples of stuff I’m working on. I am currently working on plans for post-doctoral work, so may have a few vox pops to get feedback on my ideas. I’ll probably have something up about my post-doc plans shortly. I’ll also post reviews of papers, articles and books I’ve read, mostly on the academic side of things but perhaps with the odd fiction book chucked in. I’m happy to review stuff at request if I can make the time.
I can be contacted at thamiltonholmes@gmail.com.
I’m also on Twitter @TarquinHH and Academia.edu @ https://exeter.academia.edu/THolmes
Domestic/Wild 