From Immunity to Collaboration

Microbes, Waste, and Antitoxic Politics

Bibliographic Data

ID2228461
AuthorsAmy Zhang (0000-0001-8208-0742)
Year2021
Volume62
IssueS24
PagesS298-S310
Publication date2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/715542
OpenAlexW3201572911
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited49

In this paper I trace the emergence of a more-than-human antitoxic politics where microbes are cultivated agents of environmental remediation. Following a successful anti-incinerator protest, a group of urban waste activists in China turned to the brewing of eco-enzymes, a fermented solution made from organic waste, as a means of fortifying the health of bodies, homes, and their local environment. I illustrate how the material effects of microbes catalyze a grassroots response of experimental speculation among middle-class waste activists in response to China's polluted environment. Following feminist science and technology studies scholars and the work of Roberto Esposito, I argue that eco-enzyme brewers engage in a microbiopolitics of immunity and collaboration to reconstitute human and nonhuman collectives in acts of cooperation and care for the environment. Eco-enzymes brewing illustrates how the uncertain effects of microbial transformation can sustain an experimental inquiry into the modes of ecological action that are possible under China's authoritarian politics and polluted landscape

Authoritarianism · China · Democracy · Environmental ethics · Environmental planning · Environmentalism · Geography · Grassroots · Laundry · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism