With Microbes

Denis Chartier, Veera Kinnunen, Johanna Nurmi, Katriina Huttunen, Elina Oinas, Marine Legrand, Germain Meulemans, Jose A. Cañada, Nicolas Fortané, Mark Erickson, Catherine Will, A.C. Davidson, Emma Ransom-Jones, Andrea Butcher, Matthäus Rest, Salla Sariola, and Charlotte Brives
Mattering Press
2021-10-06

Without microbes, no other forms of life would be possible. But what does it mean to be with microbes? With Microbes sets microbes and the multiple ways they exist around, in and on humans at center stage. In this book, 24 social scientists and artists attune to microbes and describe their complicated relationships with humans and other beings. The book shows the multiplicity of these relationships and their dynamism, through detailed ethnographies of the relationships between humans, animals, plants, and microbes. Ethnographic explorations with fermented foods, waste, faecal matter, immunity, antimicrobial resistance, phages, as well as indigenous and scientific understandings of microbes challenge ideas of them being simple entities: not just pathogenic foes, old friends or good fermentation minions, but so much more. By describing these complex, dynamic, and ever-changing entanglements between humans and microbes, the chapters raise crucial points about how microbes are ‘known’ and how social scientists can study microbes with ethnographic methods, more often than not in the absence of microscopes, models, and computations. Following these various entanglements, the book tells how these relations transform both humans and microbes in the process.

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Keywords

  • Social and cultural anthropology
  • Social research and statistics
  • Impact of science and technology on society
  • Science and Technology Studies

With Microbes

Denis Chartier, Veera Kinnunen, Johanna Nurmi, Katriina Huttunen, Elina Oinas, Marine Legrand, Germain Meulemans, Jose A. Cañada, Nicolas Fortané, Mark Erickson, Catherine Will, A.C. Davidson, Emma Ransom-Jones, Andrea Butcher, Matthäus Rest, Salla Sariola, and Charlotte Brives

Mattering Press

2021-10-06

CC BY-NC-SA

Without microbes, no other forms of life would be possible. But what does it mean to be with microbes? With Microbes sets microbes and the multiple ways they exist around, in and on humans at center stage. In this book, 24 social scientists and artists attune to microbes and describe their complicated relationships with humans and other beings. The book shows the multiplicity of these relationships and their dynamism, through detailed ethnographies of the relationships between humans, animals, plants, and microbes. Ethnographic explorations with fermented foods, waste, faecal matter, immunity, antimicrobial resistance, phages, as well as indigenous and scientific understandings of microbes challenge ideas of them being simple entities: not just pathogenic foes, old friends or good fermentation minions, but so much more. By describing these complex, dynamic, and ever-changing entanglements between humans and microbes, the chapters raise crucial points about how microbes are ‘known’ and how social scientists can study microbes with ethnographic methods, more often than not in the absence of microscopes, models, and computations. Following these various entanglements, the book tells how these relations transform both humans and microbes in the process.

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Topics

  • Social and cultural anthropology
  • Social research and statistics
  • Impact of science and technology on society
  • Science and Technology Studies