Working with mice in immunological research. Attachment, emotions and care

Abstract

This essay describes and reflects upon some typical features of the animal-researchers relation in the settings of scientific animal experimentation. The relationship between researchers and “their lab-animals” is highly ambivalent. On one hand animals are reduced to some kind of technological tools, data bearing analytical animals. On the other hand they certainly remain living natural animals cared for and object of emotional attachments. Scientists are building up a certain emotional distance towards their lab-animals, but nevertheless keep some kind of emotional relationship with them. After a description of routines with mice in an immunology laboratory, I will focus on the relevance of the living body of the used mice for the characteristic ambivalence of the scientists’ perception of them.