Paper short abstract:

This paper explores human-microbial interactions within the two contexts of everyday life and scientific research. A detachment between the micro and macro levels of experience mirrors the fundamentally different approaches of social and human sciences versus the health and biological sciences.

Paper long abstract:

While science tells us that we are constantly interacting with microbial ecologies that exist within us, on us and all around us, people generally do not view their day to day experiences in this light. How do people and scientists “talk” with and about microbes? How do different scientific cultures approach microbial cultures? Is the detachment we see between the macro and micro levels of both everyday experience and scientific research a way to cope with the uncertainty of microbial life, and is it likely to change with new approaches and new instruments of research?

In this paper we seek to explore the relationships formed between the human-microbial worlds of everyday experience, and the interdisciplinary research that has evolved around them, seeing how the trials of each are mirrored in the challenges of the other. In particular, we look at the collaboration between social, biological and health sciences in formulating novel approaches and methods, and the uncertainties they encounter. The paper also seeks to outline the future prospects and challenges of moving from interdisciplinary collaboration to a transdisciplinary paradigm like One Health for both culture and science.

Based on data from the Icelandic SYMBIOSIS-project, bringing different kinds of experience and expertise to the study of human-microbial interaction, we want to highlight the possibilities of novel approaches to the biological challenges we face as individuals in a society.