A Microbial Anthropologist in the Jungle

Abstract

Finally, we approach the port after days sitting on the narrow bench of the canoe, watching walls of vegetation bending over the rivers that zigzag the jungle, guarded by taller trees behind, with their skirt of shade. The scene is similarly beautifully dynamic under the changing light of the day, in the jungles of Venezuela or Peru. We recognize the canoe port, and the trail leading up to the village. It's the end of this leg of the journey and the beginning of the work we have come to do. The first kids come down naked, running toward us, alerted by our motor. Soon women with babies and teenagers arrive, curious, observant, quiet, and reserved, with greeting smiles. They do not have many visitors. The excitement is shared.We jump off and walk up to the village, escorted by the locals. If we have been there before, there is mutual recognition and smiles, and dialog without interpreter. The conversation is really in the body language. On the other hand, if it is a first-time stopover by our team, the environment tends to be more formal in our mutual exploration, even though they knew we are coming, since they approved our visit. We arrive in the village and ask for the chief (Capita´n, Cacique, Apu). We may have to wait, sometimes for hours, often outside the village, although women from our group might be allowed to enter. They fear petroleros and miners, who take away or destroy their territory, which they defend fiercely if needed.The fieldwork team leaving a community in the jungle. Image courtesy of Oscar Noya.

Race and indigeneity in human microbiome science: microbiomisation and the historiality of otherness

“…Bioprospection as the first phase or movement of the ¨microbiomisation of race¨ is a cumulative and particularly endogamous experimental system in which landmark studies such as Dominguez-Bello and Blaser ( 2011 ) and Dominguez-Bello´s MHC ( 2012 , 2016 ) are remined for subsequent similar studies in which the scientists of the original study become part of the successive remining studies. For example, in 2012, Dominguez-Bello took part in a landmark cross-cultural and cross- geographical human microbiome study entitled ‘Human gut microbiota viewed across age and geography’.…”