Abstract
Angela Willey’s Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology seeks to critically evaluate and explore the production of knowledge within the biological field – although her recognition ‘that knowledge and power are . . . always enmeshed with one another’ (p. 3) – has implications far beyond simply how we understand biology. In its broadest sense, this book makes the case for critical evaluation of the notion of objectivity, that is to say whether knowledge as produced can ever be free of bias, unconscious or otherwise. Willey’s argument emphasises the importance of consideration of ‘nature-culture’ (p. 26), as we examine commonly accepted notions of sexuality. She navigates an argument that is radically interdisciplinary and asks us to consider all the evidence, without favouring any particular discourse. Her multidisciplinary engagement gives us the tools to challenge popular conceptions across a plethora of perspectives.
Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology offers a variety of chapters engaging with different and diverse theoretical approaches to human sexuality. Willey’s articulation of monogamy as a form of social control and part of the ‘ways men have benefited from monogamy to women’s collective detriment’ (p. 7) is compelling, particularly since she engages with prominent female thinkers, Overall, Roberts, Ehlers and Rich among others. Willey employs a genealogical excavation of the historical roots of monogamy in the modern world. She locates modern conceptions of monogamy within ‘late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sexology’ (p. 22), which defined and characterised normative sexual practices. Her engagement with Foucault allows us to begin to see the links between normative sexuality with monogamy. This is an important historical distinction for those of us concerned with challenging rigid social norms and favouring a less heteronormative more fluid conception of sexuality and desire.
Through her analysis of ‘Colonial Sexual Science’ (chapter 2), Willey analyses the interplay between race and monogamy, demonstrating its inherently oppressive nature. For Willey, monogamy must be understood as ‘fundamentally entangled with the politics of race and nation’ (Willey, 2016: 26). Here as throughout, Willey does not shy away from engagement with a key theoretical discourse – she faces it head on, challenging commonly held conceptions. In doing so, she carves out a space within which she can be recognised as the talented philosopher she is. Her challenge to Krafft-Ebing’s ‘Pyschopathia Sexualis’ (p. 30), for example, which has ‘received a great deal of attention (in its ability too) . . . shape contemporary understandings of sexuality’ (p. 30), is courageous and valuable. Here, Willey highlights Krafft-Ebing’s division of ‘us’ from ‘them’ to demonstrate the racialised undertones of much contemporary sexuality discourse. She attacks the myth of the sexualised, polyamorous Islamic savage pitted against the virtuous and moral monogamous Christian. This paints a most convincing picture of the intentional and dangerous divisions resulting from the normalising of certain sexualities. This is a prominent feature when we consider our current political climate, which I argue, continues to be racially divided in the wake of contemporary tensions with Iran, Brexit and so on. We live in a world of ‘us’ and ‘them’, which is heightened when monogamy is viewed as the only option.
Undoing Monogamy: The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology is theoretically sophisticated. Willey cites the work of Larry Young and his investigation into the neuroscience of ‘pair bonding’ and includes interviews she has conducted with him. She confidently moves from diagrams from the ‘Journal of Neuroscience Methods’ (p. 60), to a firsthand account of her time in a laboratory watching prairie voles. This firsthand scientific analysis significantly bolsters her careful and well-informed argument that monogamy should not be viewed as the only natural expression of sexuality.
Although the recurring theme in her work is that monogamy is not entirely natural, this does not mean that Willey is not solution focused. On the contrary, her argument is one of hope and of the possibilities enabled by a new progressive biology, once we begin to widen the parameters of our current scientific ideas. A new conception that must take into consideration ‘critiques that recognise what passes as “Science”, unqualified, as a culturally local and historically situated knowledge politics grounded in a myth of value neutrality and thereby unaccountable beyond the confines of its internal logics’ (p. 141). Willey’s call for an evolution of our understanding ‘imagining new ways of integrating insights about the imbrication of knowing and being’ (p. 141), which leaves me as the reader able to confidently envisage such. The implication of such being an ongoing journey, long after this book has been put down, that we have to take up the challenge of considering how we can shape and evolve sexual relationships in our modern world that are a force of liberation not oppression.
The major criticism of this work lies in its inaccessibility. It requires the reader to have a good understanding of academic jargon and theory before beginning to read, in order to fully get the most from Willey’s interdisciplinary perspective. This is a book written by an academic for academics and does not aim to recruit non-academic audiences. I frequently had to stop to look up various words, or theoretical frameworks, in order to grasp the author’s perspective. Nonetheless, this process was worth the effort and many beyond the academy would be keen to engage with this book, if it was not quite so academically taxing. Taking this into consideration, I would recommend that those without an academic background bear this in mind as they read what is an excellent offering to ‘The Politics of Science and the Possibilities of Biology’.