Where does mimicry collide?

The resemblance of one organism to another organism, or to its surroundings, that gives it a survival advantage, usually by fooling a predator into a mistaken judgment. Mallet and Joron's 1999 review Evolution of Diversity in Warning Color and Mimicry separates Batesian mimicry, in which a harmless species imitates a well defended one to borrow its protection, from Mullerian mimicry, in which several defended species converge on a single shared warning pattern so that predators learn to avoid all of them faster. The referent is an inherited resemblance shaped by natural selection acting on a signal between organisms, not the unconscious copying of a companion's gestures or a colonized people's imitation of a ruler's culture.[1]

Unit

One species' heritable resemblance to a model organism or its background

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by predator learning and attack experiments, by how closely model and mimic patterns match, and by survival or fitness differences in the field

The automatic, unintended copying of another person's postures, gestures, mannerisms, and speech during social interaction, so that people unconsciously fall into step with those around them. Chartrand and Bargh's 1999 study The chameleon effect showed that this copying happens with no goal to imitate, and that it increases liking and smoothness between partners, so mimicking a person tends to build rapport. The referent is a fleeting behavioral tendency in one human interacting with another, not an inherited resemblance between animal species or a colonized people's imitation of an imperial culture.[2]

Unit

One person's automatic copying of another's posture or gesture within an interaction

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Operationalised in the lab by coding how often a participant copies a confederate's face-touching or foot-shaking, and by rated rapport between them

In postcolonial theory, the process by which colonial power presses the colonized to take on its language, dress, manners, and institutions, producing a subject who is, in Homi Bhabha's phrase, "almost the same but not quite." Bhabha's 1984 essay Of Mimicry and Man argues that this demanded resemblance is never allowed to be complete, and that the small difference it leaves open becomes a source of ambivalence that can quietly unsettle the very authority it was meant to serve. The referent is a relation of culture and power between ruler and ruled, read out of colonial discourse, not a resemblance between animal species or the reflexive copying of a companion's gestures.[3]

Unit

A pattern of partial imitation read across a body of colonial discourse

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Traced interpretively through close reading of colonial texts, policy, and rhetoric, rather than by counting or measurement

In play studies, mimicry refers to one of Caillois's four kinds of play, in which players make believe or take on a role, as in theatre and masks. This meaning comes from Caillois (1961) in Man, play, and games.[4]

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