The Image of the Lockable: Science and Fictions in Britches’ Case

La figura de lo enjaulable: ciencia y ficciones, el caso de Britches

This article deals with britches, who was, by an unknown fate, given a name that means “pants” in the Spanish language. Was it because of their lack of hair pants? Since britches was a macaque who, days after their birth, all pink and without pants, was taken to be the object of scientific trials at the University of California, Riverside (USA). That happened in 1984, when scientists at the University subjected britches to manifold technologies of cruelty to prove their hypotheses that permanent blindness might bring on brain damage. To prove that, they stitched their eyelids, put on a helmet in their head, and had them go through endless decibel sessions. An electronic device was inserted in their head as a part of an experiment that would take their senses away for 3 years, along with other 24 young monkeys. Drawing from that fact, britches will be the focus of analysis for a debate on sacrifice and the sacrificed, the asymmetries of horror, and the revealing and radical resulting image. Also, this essay focuses on examining, through some reflections, some devices used by science to produce “lab” animals, while advocating for activism and freeing non-human animals. Additionally, we present an interdisciplinary exploration that draws on the relationship between literature, philosophy, and social studies on science.

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