Paper short abstract:

Lyme disease diagnostic and treatment problems is creating microbial socialities of political opposition between patients and scientists in Scotland. This paper explores how microbial sociality is performed as power and the effect this has on the flow of medical and social knowledge between groups.

Paper long abstract:

Recently medical authorities are publishing what patients long argued: Lyme disease, a multi-organ illness caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, is more problematic to diagnose and treat than previously thought. Due to its complex nature, B.burgdorferi may elude diagnostic tests and antibiotic treatment, which leaves a large number of patients undiagnosed and/or untreatable. In Scotland, years of disagreement over this has generated two social groups oftentimes in political opposition to one another. This paper explores how actors who "live with" B. burgdorferi in some shape or form - as patients, activists, scientists - are engaged in microbial socialities; how this sociality informs a political Other; and the effect this has on the flow of medical knowledge between groups.

My paper explores how microbial sociality is performed as power by patients demanding political and medical recognition of their illness narratives. I introduce a patient spearheading activism in Scotland by building networks between patients, the media, biotechnologies and "Lyme-literate" politicians and scientists; and a young author negotiating her biocitizenship as a Lyme disease public figure within the constraints of her body as both powerful and damaged. Both form microbial sociality with "Lyme-literate" doctors to whom their trust, diet, money and blood is given. Indubitably, this microbial sociality inverts scientist-patient hierarchies: my paper therefore introduces the scientists who, in their quest to conduct "hard science", find themselves navigating the emotional lives of the bacteria in political limelight. Finally, I consider upcoming efforts to deconstruct these microbial social borders and their challenges.