Telling ecopoetic stories: Wax worms, care, and the cultivation of other sensibilities
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Telling ecopoetic stories : Wax worms, care, and the cultivation of other sensibilities. / Grünfeld, Martin.
I: Journal of Medical Humanities, 2024.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Telling ecopoetic stories
T2 - Wax worms, care, and the cultivation of other sensibilities
AU - Grünfeld, Martin
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Recently, a beekeeper discovered the metabolic wizardry of wax worms, their ability to decompose polyethylene. While this organism has usually been perceived as a model organism in science or a pest to beekeepers, it acquired a new mode of being as potentially probiotic inviting us to dream of a future without plastic waste. In this paper, I explore how wax worms are entangled with material practices of care and narratives that give meaning to these practices. These stories, however, are marked by manipulation, exploitation and extermination, and call for a questioning of our modes of caring. Consequently, I offer a counter-narrative that questions our anthropocentric practices of caring and the stories we attach to them. Borrowing Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of ecopoetics, I tell an-other story based on my participation in the making of an art installation hosting wax worms. The installation creates an opening of a world of curiosity and cultivates a sensibility for wax worms expanding their modes of being and our capabilities of appreciation. In the end, I argue that by mattering and storying differently, we have the opportunity to challenge anthropocentric interests and make a different world of caring and co-existence possible.
AB - Recently, a beekeeper discovered the metabolic wizardry of wax worms, their ability to decompose polyethylene. While this organism has usually been perceived as a model organism in science or a pest to beekeepers, it acquired a new mode of being as potentially probiotic inviting us to dream of a future without plastic waste. In this paper, I explore how wax worms are entangled with material practices of care and narratives that give meaning to these practices. These stories, however, are marked by manipulation, exploitation and extermination, and call for a questioning of our modes of caring. Consequently, I offer a counter-narrative that questions our anthropocentric practices of caring and the stories we attach to them. Borrowing Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of ecopoetics, I tell an-other story based on my participation in the making of an art installation hosting wax worms. The installation creates an opening of a world of curiosity and cultivates a sensibility for wax worms expanding their modes of being and our capabilities of appreciation. In the end, I argue that by mattering and storying differently, we have the opportunity to challenge anthropocentric interests and make a different world of caring and co-existence possible.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - Artistic Research
KW - Ecopoetics
KW - Materiality
KW - Posthumanism
KW - care
KW - Environmental Humanities
KW - Faculty of Science
KW - wax worms
KW - Model organisms
KW - Pest Control
KW - Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
KW - care
KW - Environmental Health
U2 - 10.1007/s10912-024-09878-6
DO - 10.1007/s10912-024-09878-6
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 39145849
JO - Journal of Medical Humanities
JF - Journal of Medical Humanities
SN - 1041-3545
ER -
ID: 391212882