Habitat Selection for Maximizing Fitness Interests: Selected Stories from Women’s Crime Fiction in Barcelona Noir

Abstract

Evolutionary psychology examines the links between psychological mechanisms and adaptive problems. This article focuses on the adaptive problem of habitat selection. To perpetuate survival, the individual members of a species must accurately assess the threats and benefits presented by the environment they inhabit. When threats outweigh benefits, the individual must safeguard their survival by either overcoming the threat or finding a more suitable habitat. The article reads the stories penned by Cristina Fallarás, Isabel Franc, Teresa Solana and Antonia Cortijos for the anthology Barcelona Noir (2011) as imaginative constructs of the avoid-approach quandary in habitat selection. Adopting an evolutionary approach, it examines the links between survival and the capacity to ‘detect’, ‘perceive’ and ‘seek’ suitable habitats as represented in these stories.