Article ID: CBB874316885

Low-carbon cows: From microbial metabolism to the symbiotic planet (June 2022)

unapi

This article focuses on two projects – one at a large chemical company and the other at a small start-up – to intervene in the relations between cows and ruminal microbes to reduce bovine methane emissions. It describes these interventions as ‘symbiotic engineering’: a biopolitical technique targeting holobionts and becoming effective by working on interlaced sets of living things. Based on the analysis of these cases, the article elucidates a planetary symbiopolitics (Helmreich) that connects ‘molecular biopolitics’ (Rose) and ‘microbiopolitics’ (Paxson) to ‘bovine biopolitics’ (Lorimer, Driessen) and the politics of climate change. We critically investigate the spatial imaginaries of symbiotic engineering practices that single out the microbial realm as an Archimedean point to address planetary problems. This technoscientific vision resonates with the notion of the ‘symbiotic planet’ advanced by Lynn Margulis that depicts the Earth System, or Gaia, as a vast set of relations among living things down to the tiniest microbes. Margulis’ concept, as well as the ‘symbiotic view of life’ (Gilbert, Scott, Sapp) has been embraced in recent debates in STS as a way to think of multispecies worldings. The article contributes critically to these debates by showing what happens when the topology of the symbiotic Earth becomes the operating space for symbiotic engineering practices.

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Authors & Contributors
Susanne Brucksch
Abril Saldaña-Tejeda
Guthman, Julie
Adriana Giannini
Jeanne Oui
Comandini, Ana C. Gálvez
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Science and society
Biopolitics
Agriculture
Case studies
Controversies and disputes
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
Places
England
Europe
Scotland
Spain
New Zealand
Japan
Institutions
Instituto Nacional de Industria (Spain)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
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