Paper short abstract:

In this auto-ethnographic paper, I shed light on the role sourdough and bread-making practices have played during the COVID-19 pandemic, investigating their agency and the new and renewed relations that emerged from them.

Paper long abstract:

Relying on auto-ethnography, I reflect on the role sourdough and bread-making practices have played during the COVID-19 pandemic. I explore the agency of a non-human entity—the sourdough—and the relations that emerge from nurturing it. In particular, I inquire what living relationally means for me—a professional migrant—in a time that is not only challenging, due to the pandemic and consequent lockdown away from my country of origin, but which has also forced me to proactively and creatively respond to being in a precarious employment. Sourdough and bread-making practices have allowed me to create, recreate, and reinforce new and existing relations. I, thus, indicate to what extent such practices activate kin making and knowledge making, whilst counterbalancing the alienation and distress that come from experiencing a pandemic.