Primates occupy a liminal space between humans and animals. On the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, translocated vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) are respected creatures, yet they cause problems. Vervets regularly consume crops on farms and are considered “pests”; still, Kittitians express empathy and understanding for them based largely on the monkeys' display of human-like behaviours. Using data from interviews with 64 Kittitian farmers, we deconstruct the symbolism of the vervet monkey in St. Kitts and analyse how farmers give the monkeys identities that are meaningful only within human social expectations. Our findings reveal that Kittitian farmers consider monkeys to be clever and emotive, displaying complex intentions such as revenge and remorse. Yet, crop-foraging behaviour is a regular and negative experience for the majority of farmers in this study, and the monkeys' presence itself is a constant reminder of the multitude of challenges farmers face in a newly adopted tourism economy that no longer prioritises agriculture. Our results reveal that while vervet crop consumption is a significant problem in St. Kitts, it is the monkeys' boundary-crossing status that drives the growing mentality that “the monkey problem” is completely out of control.

Keywords:
Ethnoprimatology, Human-wildlife conflict, Vervet monkey, Ethnography, Sociology, Identity construction, Symbolism, Cultural construct, Caribbean, Invasive species
1.
Arluke A, Sanders CR (1996). Regarding Animals. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
2.
Berger PL, Luckmann T (1967). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York, Anchor Books.
3.
Biersack A (2006). Reimagining political ecology: culture/power/history/nature. In Reimagining Political Ecology (Biersack A, Greenberg JB, eds.), pp 3-40. Durham, Duke University Press.
4.
Brashares JS, Arcese P, Sam MK, Coppolillo PB, Sinclair AR, Balmford A (2004). Bushmeat hunting, wildlife declines, and fish supply in West Africa. Science 306: 1180-1183.
5.
Carter A, Carter C (1999). Cultural representations of nonhuman primates. In The Nonhuman Primates (Dolinow P, Fuentes A, eds.), pp 270-276. Mountain View, Mayfield Publishing Co.
6.
Cheney D, Seyfarth R (1990). How Monkeys See the World. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
7.
Coppinger RP, Maguire JP (1980). Cercopithecus aethiops of St. Kitts. A population estimate based on human predation. Caribbean Journal of Science 15: 1-7.
8.
Corby R, Theunissen B (1995). Ape, Man, Apeman: Changing Views since 1600. Proceedings from the Symposium: Ape, Man, Apeman: Changing Views since 1600, 28 June to 1 July 1993, Leiden. Leiden, Department of Prehistory, Leiden University.
9.
Cormier LA (2002). Monkey as food, monkey as child: Guaja symbolic cannibalism. In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections (Fuentes A, Wolfe LD, eds.), pp 63-84. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
10.
Cormier LA (2003). Kinship with Monkeys: The Guaja Foragers of Eastern Amazonia. New York, Columbia University Press.
11.
Cormier LA (2006). A preliminary review of neotropical primates in the subsistence and symbolism of indigenous lowland South American peoples. Ecological and Environmental Anthropology 2: 14-32.
12.
Crocker JC (1985). Vital Souls, Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism, and Shamanism. Tuscon, University of Tuscon Press.
13.
Denham WW (1982). History of green monkeys in the West Indies. I. Migration from Africa. The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society 36: 211-228.
14.
Denham WW (1987). West Indian green monkeys: problems in historical biogeography. In Contributions to Primatology (Szalay FS, ed.), vol 24, pp 1-78. Basel, Karger.
15.
Descola P, Pálsson G (1996). Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. London, Routledge.
16.
Dore KM (2013). An Anthropological Investigation of the Dynamic Human-Vervet Monkey ( Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) Interface in St. Kitts, West Indies. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
17.
Dore KM (2017a). Ethnophoresy. In The International Encyclopedia of Primatology (Fuentes A, Bezanson B, Campbell CJ, DiFiore AF, Elton S, Estrada A, Jones-Engel LE, MacKinnon KC, Nekaris KAI, Riley E, Ross S, Sanz C, Sussman RW, Thierry B, eds.). Hoboken, Wiley-Blackwell.
18.
Dore KM (2017b). Vervets in the Caribbean. In The International Encyclopedia of Primatology (Fuentes A, Bezanson B, Campbell CJ, DiFiore AF, Elton S, Estrada A, Jones-Engel LE, MacKinnon KC, Nekaris KAI, Riley E, Ross S, Sanz C, Sussman RW, Thierry B, eds.). Hoboken, Wiley-Blackwell.
19.
Dore KM (2017c). Navigating the methodological landscape: ethnographic data expose the nuances of the “monkey problem” in St. Kitts, West Indies. In Ethnoprimatology: A Practical Guide to Research at the Human-Nonhuman Primate Interface (Dore KM, Riley EP, Fuentes E, eds.), pp 219-231. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
20.
Dore KM, Gallagher C, Mill A (2015). Preliminary report on the use of GPS/GSM tracking devices to estimate the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) population on the island of St. Kitts. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 156: 124.
21.
Dore KM, Sewell D, Mattenet E, Turner TR (in press). GIS and GPS techniques in an ethnoprimatological investigation of St. Kitts vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) crop-raiding behavior. In GIS and GPS in Primatology: A Practical Guide to Spatial Analysis (Shaffer CA, Dolins F, Hickey JR, Nibbelink NP, Porter L, eds.). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
22.
Douglas M (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
23.
Eller J, Eller AR, Santoni-Sanchez Z (2013). Furries and their communities. In Deviance Today (Thio A, Calhoun T, Conyers A, eds.), pp 233-242. Boston, Pearson.
24.
Else JG (1991). Nonhuman primates as pests. In Primate Responses to Environmental Change (Box HO, ed.), pp 155-166. London, Chapman and Hall.
25.
Fuentes A (2010). Naturecultural encounters in Bali: monkeys, temples, tourists, and ethnoprimatology. Cultural Anthropology 25: 600-624.
26.
Fuentes A (2012). Ethnoprimatology and the anthropology of the human-primate interface. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 101-117.
27.
Girgen J (2003). The historical and contemporary prosecution and punishment of animals. Animal Law 9: 97-133.
28.
Glaser BG, Strauss A (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York, Aldine de Gruyter.
29.
Goffman E (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall/Spectrum.
30.
Gravlee CC (2009). How race becomes biology: embodiment of social inequality. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139: 47-57.
31.
Gullo A, Lassiter U, Wolch J (1998). The cougar's tale. In Animal Geographies: Place, Politics, and Identity in the Nature-Culture Borderlands (Wolch J, Emel J, eds.), pp 139-161. London, Verso.
32.
Haraway DJ (1989). Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science. London, Routledge.
33.
Hill CM (2005). People, crops and primates: a conflict of interests. In Commensalism and Conflict: The Human-Primate Interface (Paterson JD, Wallis J, eds.), pp 40-59. Norman, American Society of Primatologists Publications.
34.
Hochschild AR (2012). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, UC Press.
35.
Hooton EA (1955). The importance of primate studies in anthropology. In The Nonhuman Primates and Human Evolution (Gavan JA, ed.), pp 1-10. Detroit, Wayne University Press.
36.
Janson HW (1952). Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. London, The Warberg Institute.
37.
Knight J (1999). Monkeys on the move: the natural symbolism of people-macaque conflict in Japan. The Journal of Asian Studies 58: 622-647.
38.
Knight J (2000). Introduction. In Natural Enemies: People-Wildlife Conflicts in Anthropological Perspective (Knight J, ed.), pp 1-35. London, Routledge.
39.
Lévi-Strauss C (1963). Totenism. Boston, Beacon Press.
40.
Lizarralde M (2002). Ethnoecology of monkeys among the Bari of Venezuela: perception, use and conservation. In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections (Fuentes A, Wolfe LD, eds.), pp 85-100. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
41.
Malone N, Wade AH, Fuentes A, Riley EP, Remis M, Jost Robinson C (2013). Ethnoprimatology: critical interdisciplinary and multispecies approaches in anthropology. Critique of Anthropology 34: 8-29.
42.
McGuire MT (1974). The St. Kitts Vervet. New York, Karger.
43.
Merrill GC (1958). The Historical Geography of St. Kitts and Nevis: The West Indies. Mexico City, Instituto Pan Americano de Geografía e Historia.
44.
Morris D (2013). Monkey. London, Reaktion Books.
45.
Morris P, Knight S, Lesley S (2012). Belief in animal minds: does familiarity with animals influence beliefs about animal emotions? Society and Animals 20: 211-224.
46.
Mullan B, Marvin G (1999). Zoo Culture, 2nd ed. Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
47.
Mullin MH (1999). Mirrors and windows: sociocultural studies of human-animal relationships. Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 201-224.
48.
Naughton-Treves L (1997). Farming the forest edge: vulnerable places and people around Kibale National Park, Uganda. Geographical Review 87: 27-46.
49.
Nekaris A (2010). Exploring cultural drivers for wildlife trade via an ethnoprimatological approach: a case study of slender and slow lorises (Loris and Nycticebus) in South and Southeast Asia. American Journal of Primatology 72: 877-886.
50.
Ohnuki-Tierney E (1987). The Monkeys as Mirror. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
51.
Parrish AE, Brosnan SF (2012). Primate cognition. In Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (Ramachandran VS, ed.), 2nd ed., pp 174-180. Amsterdam, Elsevier.
52.
Peterson JV, Riley EP, Oka NP (2015). Macaques and the ritual production of sacredness among Balinese transmigrants in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. American Anthropologist 117: 71-85.
53.
Richard AF, Goldstein SJ, Dewar RE (1989). Weed macaques: the evolutionary implications of macaque feeding ecology. International Journal of Primatology 10: 569-594.
54.
Richardson BC (1983). Caribbean Migrants: Environment and Human Survival on St. Kitts and Nevis. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press.
55.
Riley E (2006). Ethnoprimatology: toward reconciliation of biological and cultural anthropology. Ecological and Environmental Anthropology 2: 75-86.
56.
Riley EP (2013). Contemporary primatology in anthropology: beyond the epistemological abyss. American Anthropologist 115: 411-422.
57.
R Development Core Team (2008). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org.
58.
Rowland B (1973). Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press.
59.
Rubington E, Weinberg M (2015). Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective. New York, Routledge.
60.
Schneider CD (1977). Shame, Exposure, and Privacy. Boston, Beacon Press.
61.
Shanklin E (1985). Sustenance and symbol: anthropological studies of domesticated animals. Annual Review of Anthropology 14: 375-403.
62.
Shepard GH (2002). Primates in Matsigenka subsistence and worldview. In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections (Fuentes A, Wolfe LD, eds.), pp 101-136. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
63.
Sicotte P, Uwengeli P (2002). Reflections on the concept of nature and gorillas in Rwanda: implications for conservation. In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections (Fuentes A, Wolfe LD, eds.), pp 163-181. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
64.
Sponsel LE, Ruttanadakul N, Natadecha-Sponsel P (2002). Monkey business? The conservation implications of macaque ethnoprimatology in southern Thailand. In Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections (Fuentes A, Wolfe LD, eds.), pp 288-309. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
65.
Sprague J (2016). Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences, 2nd ed. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield.
66.
Stets JE, Turner JH (2005). The Sociology of Emotions. New York, Cambridge University Press.
67.
Stets JE, Turner JH (2014). Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, vol II. New York, Springer.
68.
Strauss A, Corbin J (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, Sage Publications.
69.
Strum S, Fedigan L (1999). Primate Encounters, Models of Science, Gender and Society. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
70.
Thomas WI (1931). The Unadjusted Girl. Boston, Little, Brown & Co.
71.
Viveiros de Castro E (1992). From the Enemy's Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in Amazonian Society (translated by Howard CV). Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
72.
Wheatley BP (1999). The Sacred Monkeys of Bali. Prospect Heights, Waveland.
73.
Wheatley BP, Harya Putra DK (1994). The effects of tourism on conservation at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali. Revue d'Ecologie 49: 245-257.
74.
Wilbert J (1980). Folk Literature of the Warao Indians. Los Angeles, UCLA Latin American Center Publications.
75.
York R, Longo SB (2015). Animals in the world: A materialist approach to sociological animal studies. Journal of Sociology 53: 32-46.
76.
Zak AA, Riley EP (2016). Comparing the use of camera traps and farmer reports to study crop feeding behavior of moor macaques (Macaca maura). International Journal of Primatology 38: 224-242.
77.
Zhao Q (1994). A study on semi-commensalism of Tibetan macaques at Mt. Emei, China. Revue d'Ecologie 49: 259-271.
© 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel
2018
Copyright / Drug Dosage / Disclaimer
Copyright: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated into other languages, reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, microcopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Drug Dosage: The authors and the publisher have exerted every effort to ensure that drug selection and dosage set forth in this text are in accord with current recommendations and practice at the time of publication. However, in view of ongoing research, changes in government regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to drug therapy and drug reactions, the reader is urged to check the package insert for each drug for any changes in indications and dosage and for added warnings and precautions. This is particularly important when the recommended agent is a new and/or infrequently employed drug.
Disclaimer: The statements, opinions and data contained in this publication are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of the publishers and the editor(s). The appearance of advertisements or/and product references in the publication is not a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised or of their effectiveness, quality or safety. The publisher and the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content or advertisements.
You do not currently have access to this content.