Título: Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking with Microbes
Autor: Amber Benezra
Sinopse: A fascinating ethnography of microbes that opens up new spaces for anthropological inquiry
The trillions of microbes in and on our bodies are determined by not only biology but also our social connections. Gut Anthro tells the fascinating story of how a sociocultural anthropologist developed a collaborative “anthropology of microbes” with a human microbial ecologist to address global health crises across disciplines. It asks: what would it mean for anthropology to act with science? Based partly at a preeminent U.S. lab studying the human microbiome, the Center for Genome Sciences at Washington University, and partly at a field site in Bangladesh studying infant malnutrition, it examines how microbes travel between human guts in the “field” and in microbiome laboratories, influencing definitions of health and disease, and how the microbiome can change our views on evolution, agency, and life.
As lab scientists studied the interrelationships between gut microbes and malnutrition in resource-poor countries, Amber Benezra explored ways to reconcile the scale and speed differences between the lab, the intimate biosocial practices of Bangladeshi mothers and their children, and the looming structural violence of poverty. In vital ways, Gut Anthro is about what it means to collaborate—with mothers, local field researchers in Bangladesh, massive philanthropic global health organizations, with the microbiome scientists, and, of course, with microbes. It follows microbes through various enactments in scientific research—microbes as kin, as data, and as race. Revealing how racial categories are used in microbiome research, Benezra argues that microbial differences need transdisciplinary collaboration to address racial health disparities without reifying race as a straightforward biological or social designation.
Gut Anthro is a tour de force of science studies and medical anthropology as well as an intensely personal and deeply theoretical accounting of what it means to do anthropology today.
Cover alt text:
Black background overlaid with a pink organic path suggestive of a human digestive system. Title appears within the guts as if being processed.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking with Microbes”, de Amber Benezra, publicado pela editora University of Minnesota Press, em 2023 e com 282 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: University of Minnesota Press
Páginas: 282
Ano: 2023-05-09
Edição:
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 1517901308
ISBN13: 9781517901301
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora University of Minnesota Press costumam apresentar uma leitura que combina rigor teórico com uma abordagem crítica das dinâmicas culturais, políticas e sociais contemporâneas. O catálogo revela uma forte presença de obras que exploram temas como identidade cultural, globalização, conflitos de classe e questões pós-coloniais, muitas vezes com um tom analítico e denso, mas acessível. Há também um interesse evidente por estudos culturais que dialogam com filosofia, teoria política e crítica social, além de um olhar atento para as interseções entre arte, mídia e tecnologia. O ritmo das obras varia entre narrativas mais reflexivas e ensaios que propõem debates instigantes, o que pode atrair leitores dispostos a confrontar perspectivas complexas e multifacetadas.
