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- Convenors:
-
Valdimar Tr. Hafstein
(University of Iceland)
Salla Sariola (University of Helsinki)
Jón Þór Pétursson (University of Iceland)
Matthäus Rest (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Posthumanism
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 23 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The panel-workshop explores symbiotic living between humans and microbes and how that coexistence is shaped through everyday cultural practices, present and past. The session combines presentations with hands-on fermentation.
Long Abstract:
This panel-workshop experiments with everyday symbiotic practices of humans and microbes, their effects, affects, and social imaginaries. It combines presentations and hands-on fermentation.
Images of homemade sourdough bread have flooded social media during the pandemic, with accounts of successes and failures; a model of resilience in times of lockdown and social distancing. Recently, scientific knowledge, popular interest and commercial investment in intimate relations between humans and microbes have grown exponentially. This raises new questions and challenges for research, even as multi-species collectives that have fermented together for hundreds of human (and millions of microbial) generations are threatened with extinction.
Human-microbial relations involve varied and conflicting social practices, including circulation of microbiota, narratives and epistemologies within and between the communities these engender. Indeed, fermentation, composting and various agricultural practices may be seen as forms of interspecies communication, complemented by anecdotes and jokes conveying a sense of purpose and belonging. How are these interspecies relations shaped through everyday practices, present and past? This panel challenges scholars to break away from immunitarian models that define microbes as intruding others to address how to live with companion species that have sustained humans for millennia.
During the first day we will bake sourdough bread and those who want to bake should bring along flour and a starter culture. All presentations will take place on the first day. During the second day, we will make cheese and for that you will need 1-2 litres of milk, vinegar, and yoghurt.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 23 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This presentation discusses the fermentation imaginaries’ impact on the body of gender and kinship and, vice versa, that is the impact of the ideological constructions of gender and kinship on the natural processes of fermentation, in a shepherd and matrilocal society of the Cyclades, during the 90s
Paper long abstract:
The interrelation of sexual intercourse, menstrual blood, embryos and fermented substances in a Greek matrilocal shepherd community brings in the foreground an all passing interconnection between the fermentation micro-ecologies and the human body ecologies, narratives and imaginaries, which take for granted the strong ties between fermentation and human reproduction.
The fermented substances’ odour, such as the one emitted from a wine barrel opening, may be blamed for miscarriages and, yet, the odour of the cheese called “male”, is able to save pregnant women from miscarriages. What these odours have in common is that they are generated from fermented substances or processes of fermentation. The intervention of fermented substances to the gestation period may open the way to think of gestation as a kind of fermentation, especially if we take in consideration that sexual intercourse may spoil in turn the sourdough fermentation process. What is the common ground that permits these narratives and imaginaries and facts? Human body functions and fermentation processes seem inextricably correlated life procedures. The system of kinship in this type of matrilocal community seems mediated by the microbial agency of the fermentation imaginaries and vice versa, intermingling fermentation and conception, in other words the microbial agency and the system of kinship or the ideological construction of natural procedures.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork among Bokashi households, I explore, how are microbes enacted within bokashi. I ask, how are microbes known and communicated with and about in bokashi practice. To do this, I analyse corporeal encounters with bokashi and narrated stories of these encounters.
Paper long abstract:
Bokashi composting is a lay method of composting with a help of a specific consortium of ‘beneficial microbes’ which anaerobically ferment the organic matter, which are then rapidly incorporated by soil biota. The method produces nutritious soil in just a few weeks. The origins of bokashi lie in Japan and rural Southeast Asia, but during the recent few years, it has gained popularity also among Western and urban dwellers.
In my ethnographic fieldwork among bokashi making households, I have witnessed, how bokashi practicing makes us practitioners aware of the multitude of microbes ‘collaborating’ with us in transforming the waste substance into soil.
By drawing from my ethnographic fieldwork, I set out to explore, how are microbes enacted within bokashi practice. I ask, how is the existence of these tiny, invisible creatures known and how are they communicated with and about in bokashi practice. To do this, I analyse both corporeal encounters with bokashi matter as well as narrated stories of these encounters.
I propose that bokashi practice, in all its mundane everydayness, has a capacity to radically disrupt and transform waste relations as well as human-microbe 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 us practitioners aware of the microbial abundance of the world and providing us with will and skills for nurturing human-microbial relations.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores symbiotic relations between humans, microbes and divinity based on fieldwork on the banks of the Ganges. I bring together microbiology and Hindu rituals to explore entanglements between water, bacteriophages, and the Goddess Ganga during the COVID-19 pandemic in Varanasi.
Paper long abstract:
According to microbiologists the waters of the Ganges River are teeming with microbial lifeforms. Water quality testing and bacteriological analysis indicate extremely high levels of faecal coliforms and the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the river. Despite this alarming situation described by the scientific data, the local population and pilgrims from across the country dip, bathe, and drink gangajal—holy Ganges water—on a daily basis.
My doctoral research started focusing on contemporary microbiological studies of the Ganges’ waters in Varanasi, especially on “friendly viruses”—bacteriophages. I interviewed and worked with microbiologists and other experts through participant observation in laboratories, conferences, and sample collection to think about human-microbe relationships by the banks of the Ganges. However, mid-way through my research a new virus came into the frame—the coronavirus—which has gone on to disrupt most of human life across the planet. During the pandemic, despite the disruption to my original field-sites, I was able to follow daily bathers and local Hindu priests closely in their everyday relations with gangajal and its microbial life.
In this paper I propose to look at the daily use of Ganges water as a human-microbe-divine relationship, bringing together microbiological and ritual conception of water to think about non-secular forms of symbiotic living. I explore the entanglement of bacteriophages and the healing powers of the Ganga goddess in relation to COVID-19 to think about everyday religion and science through the lens of the microscope.