The Microbes and Social Equity working group and the University of Maine Institute of Medicine present the MSE spring speaker series 2022, which is supported by the UMaine Institute of Medicine, and the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series Fund
April 6, 2022, 12:00 - 13:00 EST:
Talk: "Decomposition as Life Politics"
Dr. Kristina Lyons is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds affiliations with the Center for Experimental Ethnography and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies. Kristina’s current research is situated at the interfaces of socio-ecological conflicts, science, and legal studies in Colombia and Latin America. Her manuscript, Vital Decomposition: Soil Practitioners and Life Politics (Duke 2020), was awarded honorable mention by the Bryce Wood Book Award committee from the Latin American Studies Association. She has also collaborated on the creation of soundscapes, street performances, photographic essays, graphic novels, popular education audiovisual projects, community radio programs, digital storytelling platforms, and various forms of literary writing.
Talk summary: How does attention to and stewardship of soils point to alternative frameworks for living and dying? Dr. Lyons explores the way life strives to flourish in the face of violence, criminalization, and poisoning produced by militarized, growth-oriented development in the midst of the U.S.-Colombia war on drugs.
About the 2022 series: Microbes influence the health and well-being of all living things—individuals, communities, and broader environmental networks which span internationally. The Microbes and Social Equity group is presenting a speaker series, hosted by the University of Maine Institute of Medicine, which will specifically highlight how the different kinds of microbes that we interact with are influenced by aspects of daily life as well as the social policies which support or oppress livelihoods. The virtual speaker series aims to give students, staff, and faculty at UMaine, as well as our broader educational community, the opportunity to learn about how social equity and microbes intersect to shape health in wide range of settings—how we define what a ‘healthy human microbe’ is, how soil microbes shape community health, what challenges the integration of the microbiome research in a One Health perspective, and more. This speaker series will explore the ways that microbes connect public policy, social disparities, and human health, as well as ongoing research, education, policy, and innovation in this field.
