ABSTRACT

The turn towards deep entanglement precipitated by the Anthropocene has seen a rise in probiotic approaches towards microorganisms that highlight human-microbe relationalities. However, COVID-19 complicates this relationality not least considering its staggering effects on human society which have reinforced notions of solidarity and common crisis, as evidenced in the various biopolitical measures or the ‘outbreak narrative’. In this regard, Heather Paxson’s formulation of microbiopolitics as the construction and evaluation of categories of microorganisms serves as a useful model to ask what kind of microbiopolitics the coronavirus pandemic makes possible and what these strategies imply for collaborative human-microbe relations or multispecies flourishing. The microbiopolitics that marks the pandemic as new mutations and strains of viruses are being identified and a future of zoonotic diseases is anticipated shows this microbial relationality as already present. However, to make sense of entanglement in the pandemic is to recognize microbiopolitics as socio-politically contingent and undercut by anthropocentric anxieties for our own well-being but also as a species precarity. This species precarity for humans shows that the pandemic is differentially experienced as a self while negotiating its relations with non-human others. It is what demands of us that we develop strategies for living along with the virus or other microbes for the foreseeable future.

摘要

人类世引发了深度纠缠的转变，针对微生物的益生菌方法有所增加，强调了人类与微生物的关系。然而，COVID-19 使这种关系变得复杂，尤其是考虑到它对人类社会的惊人影响，这种影响强化了团结和共同危机的观念，正如各种生命政治措施或“疫情爆发叙事”所证明的那样。在这方面，希瑟·帕克森将微生物政治学表述为微生物类别的构建和评估，可以作为一个有用的模型来询问冠状病毒大流行使什么样的微生物政治学成为可能，以及这些策略对人类与微生物的协作关系或多物种繁荣意味着什么。微生物政治学将这场大流行标记为新的病毒突变和毒株正在被识别，并且预计人畜共患疾病的未来表明这种微生物关系已经存在。然而，要理解这场大流行病的纠缠，就必须认识到微生物政治是社会政治的偶然因素，并受到以人类为中心的对我们自身福祉的焦虑的削弱，同时也被视为一种物种的不稳定。这种物种对人类的不稳定性表明，在与非人类他人的关系谈判中，作为一个自我，这种流行病的体验是不同的。这要求我们制定在可预见的未来与病毒或其他微生物共存的策略。要理解这场大流行病的纠缠，就必须认识到微生物政治是社会政治的偶然因素，并受到以人类为中心的对我们自身福祉的焦虑的削弱，同时也被视为一种不稳定的物种。这种物种对人类的不稳定性表明，在与非人类他人的关系谈判中，作为一个自我，这种流行病的体验是不同的。这要求我们制定在可预见的未来与病毒或其他微生物共存的策略。要理解这场大流行病的纠缠，就必须认识到微生物政治是社会政治的偶然因素，并受到以人类为中心的对我们自身福祉的焦虑的削弱，同时也被视为一种不稳定的物种。这种物种对人类的不稳定性表明，在与非人类他人的关系谈判中，作为一个自我，这种流行病的体验是不同的。这要求我们制定在可预见的未来与病毒或其他微生物共存的策略。