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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores bokashi composting which challenges modes of living with waste in urban everyday life. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I propose that in all its mundane everydayness, the practice has a capacity to radically disrupt and transform human-microbial relations.

Paper long abstract:

Bokashi composting is a vernacular method of composting with a help of a specific consortium of ‘beneficial microbes”. Bokashi practice is getting popular in Finland, especially in urban areas, because it can be practiced indoors, even in small apartments.

In this paper, I will explore bokashi composting waste practice, that challenges modes of living with waste in urban everyday life. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Finnish bokashi practitioners, I propose, that bokashi practice in all its mundane everydayness, has a capacity to radically disrupt and transform waste relations as well as human-microbial relations in a more general sense. It can affect cultural waste imaginaries by transforming waste from inanimate and even ‘dead’ substance to a lively matter to be cared for. Moreover, practicing bokashi has ontological and ethical consequences by making the practitioners aware of the microbial abundance of the world and providing them with will and skills for nurturing human-microbial relations.

In this paper, I set out to explore, how are microbial relations enacted in bokashi practice. I ask, how is the existence of these tiny, invisible creatures known and how are they communicated with and talked about. To do this, I analyse both corporeal encounters with bokashi matter as well as narrated stories of these encounters.