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Paper short abstract:

Based on an overview of the transformation of scientists’ interest in microbial economies of local cheeses in the last three decades in Turkey, this paper ethnographically investigates the entanglements of dairy technosciences of starter cultures with (microbio)politics of pasture-cheesemaking.

Paper long abstract:

In 2019, The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Republic of Turkey launched the first dairy research and development lab of National Gene Bank for Food Starter Cultures in 2019. This lab aims to identify and reproduce the microorganisms of the traditional dairy products of the country in order to replace the imported starter cultures. In the last decade, microbial economies of the starter cultures have also been a major part of the scientific research agenda on local cheeses. Through ethnographic research with microbiologists and food engineers studying Kars kaşar cheeses in three universities, this paper analyzes the scientific investigations of the microorganisms that make cheese “local”. It provides an overview of the ways in which scientists’ shifting interests affected the microbial political economies of the local cheeses in the last three decades in Turkey: from identifying the autochthonous strains of microorganisms, to looking for pathogens, and, recently, for the bacteria that can make up starter cultures, which can ‘localize’ cheesemaking. Focusing on a particular case, a food engineer developing a starter culture for Kars kaşar cheese, the paper sheds light on how (the failure of) the economic valuation of microbes as starter cultures gave way to a new understanding of the collaboration between scientists, small cheesemakers, and microorganisms in making pastures present in the cheese – what I call “pasturing dairy infrastructures”. Hence the microbial economies of dairy sciences and crafts reveal the entanglements of the technosciences of starter cultures and (microbio)politics of local cheese.