Hybrid Futures
Technosocial affordances of animal-derived adhesives
Sticky Solutions: The Persistence of Animal Glues in Laboratories and Workshops in Twentieth-Century Japan
This research, accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Historical Studies in the Nature Sciences, explores the social values ascribed to animal glues (nikawa 膠) in relation to plant and synthetic adhesives within wood research and manufacturing communities in mid-twentieth-century Japan. It relates the materiality and affordances of adhesives to their value within multiple technosocial contexts, in which glues made from mammalian skin, bones, and hooves remained the predominant adhesive for small manufacturers but were being replaced by casein-, soybean-, and carbon-based adhesives in academic and corporate laboratories. The article proposes that the materiality of animal glues and the larger assemblage of materials-energy-environment-tools-skill-knowledge present in, between, and around labs and workshops both made nikawa‘s particular characteristics highly evident to users and prompted them to value nikawa differently, depending on class and context. In doing so, the article offers critical prompts for considering how we expect users in diverse contexts to engage with existing and emergent tech and materials today.