Hej Maya, please tell us a bit about yourself
I’m an inter-disciplinary researcher spanning the social sciences and humanities with interests in how we live with and understand microbes like bacteria, moulds, and yeasts. I just completed a major project on fermentation, which was an ethnography of a Japanese sake brewery distilled into a forthcoming monograph Singing with Invisible Worlds: Fermenting Sake on Microbial Time (University of Minnesota Press).
Prior to fermentation, I delved into projects about synthetic genomics, a post-Fukushima food system, and theorisations of the gut. I hold degrees in nutrition, food studies, and communication studies; I’ve taught courses in media studies, rhetoric and writing composition, sociology and STS. I’ve studied and worked in Canada, Japan, Italy, Denmark, US, and Finland, with industry experience in the food and retail sectors. Off-campus, you can find me foraging, knitting, and water-colouring.
Check out Maya’s new book,
Singing with Invisible Worlds: Fermenting Sake on Microbial Time
here. You can pre-order for Europe
here
.
What will you work on when you are here?
I come with a Formas Early-Career Grant that examines how scientists understand time in the lab when they’re working with microbes. Microbes are increasingly called upon to avert environmental crises, through innovations like cellular agriculture and creating circular/resilient bioeconomies. In parallel, time scholars have noted that assumptions about time shape the quality of research results and the kinds of conclusions drawn. With attention to timescale, timings, and synchronicity, this project asks: How does temporality affect knowledge production in innovations using microbial life?
To answer this question, I’ll be conducting lab ethnographies to compare the practices and descriptions of microbial time in relation to human “clock time,” capitalist acceleration, and more-than-human life cycles. Discourse analysis, interviews and focus groups will help contextualise my findings within regional discussions about sustainability. My hope is to critically theorise (a)synchronicities across humans, microbes, technologies, and the environment.
Learn more about Maya’s project updates and repository
here
.
What excites you about doing a postdoc here at the EHL and at the Division of History?
I’m excited to learn from my new colleagues, what with an immense range of experts! Even since joining in April, I have benefitted from the Division’s perspective on contemporary societies with its emphasis on politicising and historicising the world we take for granted – from the seemingly mundane to the extremely profound. It helps that inter-disciplinarity is the baseline here, because everyone leads with curiosity and a commitment towards a better future. I look forward to intellectual exchanges and funding collaborations in the coming years.
I’m also eager to build capacity in our KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, especially when there is a simultaneous bloodletting of humanities programs worldwide and an acute need for humanities approaches to critically and creatively interrogate our planetary futures. My hope is to add to the momentum already underway, especially in designing our new master’s program.
