Ball jars, bacteria, and labor: CO-producing nature through cooperative enterprise

Abstract

the production of nature has been employed to theorize shifts in nature-society relations that have accompanied historical transformations in production and social reproduction. While Marxist scholars have employed this framework to theorize the nature-society relations that accompany capitalist production, they have paid less attention to those that accompany non-capitalist production. in the meantime critical food studies has grown abundant with more-than-human and more-than-capitalist encounters with nature. this paper attempts to bring these two streams of thought together, in order to explore what they reveal about encounters and entanglements with microbes and non-human labor in the non-capitalist production of yogurt. Drawing on ethnographic research with a yogurt making cooperative in somerville, Massachusetts, Usa, i explore the contribution of microbial labor to the co-production of nature and post-human ethics in a cooperative food enterprise. "It's the bacteria who do all the work of making the cheese-they make the flavor, they make the texture. All we have to do is not get in their way" (Vermont Cheese Maker, in Paxson 2008, 28). "It [food work] doesn't feel like work, when it's taking care of my [microbial] cultures" (Urban Homesteader, Male, Cambridge)."From the first successful batch of kombucha to that thrilling taste of homemade sauerkraut, the practice of fermentation is one of partnership with microscopic life" (Fallon 2003, xii).

Geoethical futures: A call for more-than-human physical geography

“…Kurio and Reason, 2021; Ryan, 2021 for rivers; Swidler, 2009 for soils; Eyles et al, 1993 for risk and carcinogenic contaminants). It allows us to see ‘nature and society as co-produced through creative activities that are more-than-human’ (Morrow, 2021: 264). This should encourage physical geographers to think more deeply about how they do their work and to think about representation prior to research.…”

Creating careful circularities: Community composting in New York City

“…However, Pitt ( 2018 ) questions the extent to which such encounters necessarily lead to more caring relations. Food provisioning is often driven by anthropocentric notions of care (Morrow, 2021 ). This leads Pitt to situate more‐than‐human encounters on a spectrum from caring to killing, that recognises the ambivalence of killing some non‐humans, like slugs (Ginn, 2014 ), in order to care for others.…”

“…Attending to care as a property of community composting permits attention to other social values in circular economy scholarship. There has been far less discussion of the social and ethical implications of circularity, even as food, compost, waste, and soil are increasingly theorised as sites for practising a more‐than‐human ethics of care and transforming our relations with the material world in both agri‐food studies (Beacham, 2018; Morrow, 2021; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2019) and discard studies (Hawkins, 2006). Following Friant et al (2020) and Pla‐Julián and Guevara (2019), we see an urgent need to bring these social dimensions, and care specifically, back into the description and analysis of circular economies.…”

Having a drink with awkward Brett: Brettanomyces, taste(s) and wine/markets

“…Some non‐humans are more charismatic than others, evoking greater interest and affection (Lorimer, 2007). While recent advances in (particularly human) microbiome research has sparked engagement with the less charismatic and more awkward world of yeasts and microbiomes, this remains an undercurrent in agri‐food studies (notable exceptions include: Brice, 2014; Evans & Lorimer, 2021; Krzywoszynska, 2012, 2020; Morrow, 2021; Paxson, 2008; Tsing, 2015). I argue for the importance of studying these awkward microbes for agri‐food geography and our economic understanding of wine.…”