140. Theorizing the Human and their Surround after the Microbiome
Alison Renna, Yale University
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
The human microbiome has become a source of analytic delight for theorists in STS, who have invited the microbiome concept into some of the field’s newest theoretical projects. This is no surprise, because the human microbiome’s intimacy with processes we have long associated with the human internal life and bodily form links the microbiome to the most recent interests of our STS thought collective, in interspecies philosophy, cooperative ethics, relations of care, and new theories of authority. The human microbiome’s kinship to these priorities has invited us to theorize the microbiome with our dominant theoretical frameworks in mind, from ecological social theories in the Deleuzian lineage to feminist political philosophy. This has made the microbiome into not only a matter of our concern, but an object thick with the influence of the history of the field of STS itself. After around a decade of theorizing, it is time to take stock of what the microbiome has become through our theoretical lenses, and to evaluate our theoretical and philosophical agendas for strength and fruitfulness, and even their suitability for remaining our offering to medical and ecological thought. This panel would focus intensely on our analytic position towards the human microbiome. How do these theories shape how we value the human being and the beings we name the human microbiome? Where can we find colonialisms in the human-microbiome relation? How do we subtly and with nuance critically engage with biological paradigms, terms, and ideas? When do we need new theoretical frameworks to think through the microbiome, and when do older ideas hold up? What is the strength of the politics into which we have invited the human microbiome, and do we seek a different politics? What has thinking with the human microbiome uniquely opened for us? What languages are available to us for thinking with the human microbiome, and which languages are foreclosed? Scholars with interest in both the microbiome and theories of the ecological body are enthusiastically invited to apply.
