After a successful panel at SIEF in Brno in June, we are resuming work on a number of last-minute research tasks, that will conclude this summer. These include four rounds of sampling sourdough starters, a study of user- identified sourdough “strains”, sampling of various home fermenting food products, and a sampling of garden composts.
We also set up a team of scholars from within the project and outside, for producing a special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cultural Analysis. A number of proposed articles are based on questionnaires and interviews conducted within the SYMBIOSIS project and will be among the first publications using data from the project. Our working title for the special issue is Relating to Microbes, and it will explore many aspects of multispecies symbiotic practices where humans and microbes relate to each other.
We are currently preparing a postgraduate level course of 5 ECTS for the University of Iceland this fall. Based around the concepts studied in the SYMBIOSIS research project, it will be a joint venture by project participants with 11 professors covering different aspects of human-microbial communality.