Skip to main content

Events

EGENIS seminar: "An ethnography of metagenomics: Preliminary Results and Next Steps" Dr Roberta Raffaeta (Alma Mater University of Bologna)

Egenis seminar series

This presentation will be a critical discussion of my last book ‘Antropologia dei microbi. Come la metagenomica sta riconfigurando l’umano e la salute’ CISU, 2020. The book illustrates how the ecosystemic understandings of health and of biology introduced by microbiome research is perceived and enacted by metagenomics researchers. The main argument is that metagenomics working practices develop across the tension between theory and practice, holism and reductionism, and the molecular and the ecosystemic view.


Event details

Through the analysis of researchers’ lab practices, and of the features and frictions of their biographies and of the historical legacy of metagenomics, the book sketches pathways for interdisciplinary collaboration between metagenomics and anthropology. Within the framework offered by the book, the presentation will also be an occasion to anticipate ‘HealthXCross’, a new research funded by an ERC Starting Grant (2021-2025).  HealthXCross will analyse the tensions between the emancipatory and the dystopian effects of some metagenomics' innovative projects that aim to radically go beyond anthropocentrism through cutting-edge technology with the prospect of reconfiguring concepts of health and humanity, in which humans and non-humans are deeply entangled. 

Register here (joining details will be sent with your email confirmation)