The Probiotic Planet: Using Life to Manage Life

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Assesses a promising new approach to restoring the health of our bodies and our planet

Most of us are familiar with probiotics added to milk or yogurt to improve gastrointestinal health. In fact, the term refers to any intervention in which life is used to manage lifefrom the microscopic, like consuming fermented food to improve gut health, to macro approaches such as biological pest control and natural flood management. In this ambitious and original work, Jamie Lorimer offers a sweeping overview of diverse probiotic approaches and an insightful critique of their promise and limitations.

During our current epochthe Anthropocenehuman activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment, leading to the loss of ecological abundance, diversity, and functionality. Lorimer describes cases in which scientists and managers are working with biological processes to improve human, environmental, and even planetary health, pursuing strategies that stand in contrast to the antibiotic approach: Big Pharma, extreme hygiene, and industrial agriculture. The Probiotic Planet focuses on two forms of rewilding occurring on vastly different scales. The first is the use of keystone species like wolves and beavers as part of landscape restoration. The second is the introduction of hookworms into human hosts to treat autoimmune disorders. In both cases, the goal is to improve environmental health, whether the environment being managed is planetary or human. Lorimer argues that, all too often, such interventions are viewed in isolation, and he calls for a rethinking of artificial barriers between science and policy. He also describes the stark and unequal geographies of the use of probiotic approaches and examines why these patterns exist.

The authors preface provides a thoughtful discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic as it relates to the probiotic approach. Informed by deep engagement with microbiology, immunology, ecology, and conservation biology as well as food, agriculture, and waste management, The Probiotic Planet offers nothing less than a new paradigm for collaboration between the policy realm and the natural sciences.

Reviews

"This brilliant book delivers an incisive reading of probiotic cultural practices todaytaking in everything from home fermentation to permaculture to rewilding. Jamie Lorimer expertly shows us that social and scientific projects that aim at re-calibrating microbial, bodily, and ecological worlds are experiments in the politics of symbiosis. In our days of viral peril, The Probiotic Planet is a vital reminder of the multiple futures biology may yet prepare."Stefan Helmreich, author of Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond

"Moving between human intestines and forests patches, The Probiotic Planet maps a diverse and emerging terrain of ecological experimentation, both formal and vernacular. A transdisciplinary analysis that brings detailed attention to scientific practices into dialogue with critical social theory, this book is also a bold and important experiment in its own right."Heather Anne Swanson, director, Aarhus University Centre for Environmental Humanities

"Lorimer unravels the multiplicities of present-day scientific designs for the future."Los Angeles Review of Books

"This book bridges the gap between two widely separated topics: healing the planet by rewilding, and internal sanitation of the body by natural allies."Anthropos

"The book is well referenced... and the text is supported by appropriate and readable tables and charts."CHOICE

Author Bio

Jamie Lorimer is associate professor in the School of Geography and the Environment at University of Oxford. He is author of Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation after Nature (Minnesota, 2015).