Short abstract:

Following a Dutch consortium that combines the biomedical and social sciences within an inclusion-and-difference paradigm, I aim to explore the enactments of race and class throughout various microbiome related practices in laboratories, clinics and families in the Netherlands.

Long abstract:

Drawing on an inclusion-and-difference paradigm that is adopted from the US and increasingly applied in Dutch health research employing Participatory Action Research methodologies, my aim is to look at the performativity of race/ethnicity and class in Dutch microbiome related practices.

I take a consortium, representing microbiology, public health, (dental) medicine, computational science, the municipality and sociology, as a case wherein obesity and tooth decay are understood from a health inequalities and public health framework. Herein, I intend to explore under which normativities and circumstances markers of difference such as race/ethnicity and class are mobilized throughout a research project on microbiomes of Dutch babies. I aim to engage with microbiome related practices in various moments and sites, in clinics, laboratories and families so to gain a better understanding of how researchers draw from categories in the first place, how race/ethnicity and class are brought into being, and to explore some implications for participants, researchers and research outcomes.

Looking through an STS and autobiographical lens at this case, the author’s positionality will offer empirical substance in the form of ethical puzzling, from which we can reflect on inclusion and difference by example of this consortium.