Good germs, bad germs: A participatory model for mapping the domestic microbiome 2016-2017

Lorimer, Jamie (2018). Good germs, bad germs: A participatory model for mapping the domestic microbiome 2016-2017. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-853055

Humans are riddled with life. Our bodies, homes and cities support myriad microbial biodiversity. These are generally thought of as disease-causing 'germs' that should be eradicated. But recent developments in metagenomics - the sequencing of genetic material taken from the environment - have begun to reveal the ubiquity and functional importance of the 'human microbiome': the microbial life in, on and around us. Metagenomics helps identify extensive changes in these hitherto invisible worlds with possible implications for human health. Some, like allergy, autoimmunity and antibiotic resistance, have been linked to modern hygiene practices.

There is a growing popular and policy interest in the microbiome, and the possibilities of more nuanced or 'probiotic' ways of living with germs. To date however there has been limited public engagement with the science and technology of metagenomics and its potentially transformative means of representing the microbiome. This project will address this gap. Through an in-depth investigation of domestic kitchen practices, it will explore the transformative potential of metagenomics for developing new public understandings of domestic hygiene.

The project research design will combine ethnographic methods with laboratory techniques, through a year long collaboration with twelve households from an urban neighbourhood. These households will be asked to survey their domestic microbiome once a month for nine months, undertaking nine metaphorical microbial safaris. The focus of these safaris will emerge from a negotiation informed by our participants' interests, relevant academic literatures and the specific concerns and expertise of our project partners. Each month we will collaboratively design a range of safe, 'antibiotic' and 'probiotic' kitchen experiments - for example involving cleaning practices and products, food preparation or sampling possible sources of kitchen microbes (e.g. pets, gardens, groceries or cars). The gathered samples will be sequenced for subsequent participatory analysis and visualisation.

The outcomes and implications of each experiment will be discussed at monthly group meetings, facilitated by members of the project team, alongside project partners and invited experts. This project involves a partnership with the Food Standards Agency and aims to explore the implications of public engagements with the domestic microbiome for a range of stakeholders responsible for or interested in the management of domestic hygiene. Our participatory model will be outlined in a user report and through a practitioners' workshop. The project will deliver an extensive public database of biological and qualitative data on kitchen practices and microbiologies. It will present a range of academic outputs exploring the transformative implications of participatory metagenomics for the social and biological sciences.

Good germs, bad germs will demonstrate the potential of interdisciplinary research and participatory approaches to transform how publics, policy makers and academics perceive, engage with and seek to govern microbial life. While its substantive findings will be of direct relevance to understanding the domestic microbiome, the participatory model developed through the project has great potential for future transformative research into the microbiomes of further elements of the built environment (e.g. hospitals, schools, money, transport infrastructure) as well as the intimate spaces of the human body, like the gut.

Data description (abstract)

New developments in the natural sciences show the great diversity of microbial life in our bodies, homes and the wider environment. This work requires us to rethink what it means to be human and hygienic. Some germs are risky, but the life in and around us also keeps us healthy. There is a growing interest in ‘probiotic’ approaches to health and hygiene that can differentiate between good and bad germs. We want to bring these scientific developments out of the laboratory to explore how they relate to everyday understandings of domestic life and kitchen hygiene. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, this project recruited 14 households in Oxford to ask them about their relationship with the microbes in their home, especially in the kitchen. A first round of interviews were carried out in March 2016, and a final round of exit interviews were carried out in July 2017. The project also generated significant amounts of genomic 16S data, which has been deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive.

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