The COVID-19 pandemic that started in December 2019 has stimulated the formation of the 1,5-meter society, which has been enforced by the constant and invisible presence of the virus. This emerging social order that is marked by the proliferation of hygiene and screening techniques inspires social scientists to rethink the premises of the common living of humans and microbes.
Scholars like Dona Haraway, Anna L. Tsing and Hannah Landecker have already scrutinised the different forms of common living with non-human others. These forms include both, the ways of destroying microorganisms through the use of antibiotics and disinfectants, and the ways of co-existing with them through practices of vaccination, probiotics intake and faecal microbiota transplantation. But what do these different forms of co-destructing and co-existing with microbes mean for the living in the emerging 1,5-meter society? How are they challenged or enhanced in new circumstances? Does the COVID-19 pandemic motivate us to develop alternative ways for microbial socialization?
The panel aims to reflect upon these questions by focusing on the already existing forms of human-microbe relations established through vaccination, antibiotic treatment, probiotics and phage therapy.

Организатор: Ekaterina Borozdina (EUSP); Alena Kamenshchikova (Maastricht University)
Язык: English
Модератор: Ekaterina Borozdina (EUSP); Alena Kamenshchikova (Maastricht University)

    Alena Kamenshchikova (Maastricht University) “Microbiological imaginings of bacterial "intruders" in the global world of travelling”
    Catherine Will (University of Sussex) "Learning about our neighbours: comparing the lives of E.Coli and MGen"
    Ekaterina Borozdina (EUSP) “What’s wrong with vaccination? Parental strategies of avoiding immunization of children”
    John Penders (Maastricht University) "Early-life microbiome development in times of social distancing and increased hygiene".