Social Practices and Microscopic Matter

Elizabeth Shove Elizabeth is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. She is well known for her work on social theories of practice.Cecily Maller is Professor of Human Geography at Centre for Urban Research, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Australia. She is interested in human-environment relationships in urban settings and their implications for health outcomes.Simon Cohn, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. Simon is a medical anthropologist with a particular interest in biomedicine and public health in the UK and other high-income settings.

Societies are lively, dynamic and made and re-made through social practices that involve microbial lives. Insightful and innovative, and providing glimpses of a better future, the interdisciplinary authors take social practices and microbial relations as fundamental to understanding planetary wellbeing, health and welfare. Steve Hinchliffe, Chair in Environmental Geography, School of Geography, University of OxfordSocial practices and microscopic matter lays the foundation for critical scholarship on human-microbial relations. An important text for all interested in micro-ecological stewardship and creating “probiotic” communities in a time of global pandemics and antimicrobial resistance. Rachael Wakefield-Rann, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

• 1. Setting the scene: conceptualising microbes, bodies and health – contributions and propositions from social theory Framing concepts of contagion – introducing Part 1 2. Conceptualising contagion: disease situations and the histories and geographies of practice 3. Practices, spaces and species: rethinking human-mosquito interactions and disease transmission Framing matters of microscopic materiality – introducing Part 2 4. Conceptualising microbial materiality beyond simple categories 5. Microbiome repair: probiotic practices in agriculture 6. Holobiont public health? Changing practices of allergy prevention in Finland 7. Microbial atmospheres: healthcare architectures as a ‘more than human’ dispositive Framing bodies and human health – introducing Part 3 8. Practice Theory and the Biosocial Body 9. Microbes at large in the hospital: challenging concepts of care, contact and contamination Ideas and implications for research and policy – introducing Part 4 10. Dysbiotic times: life in distress and the politics of knowledge in microbiome research 11. Epidemiology, individualism and the virus: a critical analysis of policy responses to COVID 19 in the UK 12. What practice theories bring to studies of microbes and societies