Abstract:

Poverty, resources, social inequities, and race are not peripheral to how the microbiome is studied or understood, nor are they singularly explanatory. Growing research shows that diet, toxic exposures, housing, and health care access affect what microbial populations humans have and how those microbes affect health outcomes. This talk discusses how transdisciplinary collaboration is required to study. the biosocial intersectionality of the human microbiome and address racial health disparities in microbiome research without reifying race as a presupposed biological designation.

Bio:

Amber Benezra is a sociocultural anthropologist researching how studies of the human microbiome intersect with biomedical ethics, public health/technological infrastructures, and care. In partnership with human microbial ecologists, she is developing an "anthropology of microbes" to address global health problems across disciplines. Her book, Gut Anthro: An Experiment in Thinking With Microbes, is the first ethnography of the microbiome, and was published by University of Minnesota Press in 2023.

Amber Benezra