The microbial human

: political emergences and entanglements of the human microbiome

Abstract

The microbiome has been the cause of much excitement in the biomedical world and beyond, holding promise in medical interventions for a seemingly never-ending list of conditions and diseases. While only recently brought into the mainstream, the processes through which the microbiome is emerging in dominant natural and medical sciences require critical attention. This thesis explores the microbiome via the medical procedure of Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT). Diffracting thinkers from Science and Technology Studies with theorisations about the governance of life, the thesis unpicks the emergence of the microbiome via networks and assemblages, while also paying attention to the power structures that determine and influence such emergence through a focus on the gendered and raced human. Analysis chapters demonstrate the fruits of diffracting critical approaches ‘in motion’ first through an exploration of the hierarchies of science as they are animated in the microbiome and FMT knowledge production. I then lay out a political ecology of the microbiome to question how the entangled microbiome is currently stabilising in governance regimes. Moving on from systemic structural observations the thesis lastly unpicks corporeal subjectivities via FMT users and microbiome testing kits, noting the ability of bodies to influence and exceed governance regimes. Throughout, using the case study of the microbiome, I argue for a generative politics that takes seriously both the systems/structures and emergent (more-than) human forces that dictate human-microbe entanglement and relationality.

Date of Award	24 Jan 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Mark Jackson (Supervisor) & Maria Fannin (Supervisor)