[Call for proposals] Panel "Knowing Microbes: Ferments, Homes, and the Industry", 31.08-01.09, Basel

[Elise Tancoigne]

Dear colleagues,

we welcome you to submit proposals in the panel "P25 – Knowing Microbes: Ferments, Homes, and the Industry" which will take place during the STS-CH 2023 conference in Basel (31 August-1 September). Deadline is May 1st (maximum 300 words, in English). More information here: https://sts2023.ch/call-for-papers/#P25 and below:

P25 – Knowing Microbes. Ferments, Homes, and the Industry
Elise Tancoigne (University of Lausanne) & Henri Boullier (CNRS)

Agricultural modernization has not only impacted the biodiversity of plants and animals, it has also reduced the microbial biodiversity that is essential to sustain human, animal and plant life. All over the world, coalitions of actors (social scientists, natural scientists, consumers, breeders, farmers, dairy producers, and activists) now publicly denounce a repressive management of microbial life. Alarmed by its disappearance, they campaign for the establishment of new human-microbes relationships (Paxson and Helmreich 2014; Sariola 2021). Knowledge and expertise developed both in the laboratory (e.g., microbiome research, nutritional sciences) and in numerous communities of amateurs of fermented food and drinks, play a fundamental role in this protest. This panel welcomes contemporary empirical presentations on microbes which are domesticated both in the lab and at home (food fermentation, compost fermentation, biocontrol). We aim to discuss the following topics: 

1. Representations and imaginaries on the microbes. What representations of the ‘good’ microbe coexist(ed)? Which actors and knowledge are considered legitimate or illegitimate to produce them? How does this translate into specific choices and techniques of conservation?
   
2. Entanglements of in-lab and home research. How does knowledge produced in the lab and knowledge produced at home circulate and meet?
   
3. Regulations and expertise. How does this new knowledge contribute to challenging the existing regulations on the production, use and selling of beneficial microbes, both at the national, European, and international levels?

Please do not hesitate to circulate this information to anyone who may be interested.

Best regards,

Elise & Henri

-- 
Elise TANCOIGNE, post-doc
University of Lausanne
- Webpage: https://www.etancoigne.fr
- Phone number: +41 21 692 60 59

Recent publications:
Tancoigne Elise, 2021c, « Producing Knowledge in the Alps. Collaborative Research in Dairy Microbiology, 1960–Present », Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 28 octobre 2021, nᵒ 109‑2.
Tancoigne Élise, 2021b, « Régimes de sélection microbienne. Le cas du microbe laitier (France, 1970-1999) », Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 1 septembre 2021, vol. 15‑3.
Tancoigne Élise, 2021a, Towards a science history of Jordan’s dairy industries. The example of Jameed, https://ifpo.hypotheses.org/11337.