the sole life force of the body. From this perspective, it makes sense that bacteria should be considered as agents, with the ability to act and influence outcomes. As Karen Barad, a feminist theorist, explains, “Agency is not held, it is not a property of persons or things; rather, agency is an enactment, a matter of possibilities for reconfiguring entanglements.” Furthermore, if agency is enactment, which is not necessarily human centered, it helps take into account “entanglements of intra-acting human and non-human practices.”46 Thus, Staphylococcus aureus and tampons configured a new illness entanglement that crested in the early 1980s.
Generally, it has not been understood that bacteria intra-act, entangle, or configure. These are neutral conceptualizations, without judgment of outcome. Instead, bacteria are usually categorized by relational characteristics that indicate their increasing capacity to do harm to humans. “Symbiotic” is the least threatening, with organisms living and interacting together.47 More specifically a relationship to bacteria may be mutual (benefiting both organisms), commensal (benefiting one but not harming the other), and parasitic (living at the expense of the other). Microbes on and in the human body are often described as “microbial inhabitants” or “microbial communities.”48 Some are even “residential microbial communities,” which offers the bacteria a degree of legitimacy, as if they live in an appropriate suburban setting. Though these terms gesture to greater relational structures, it still seems that the bacteria are a community unto themselves. Michael Wilson, a microbiologist, acknowledges the dependency that humans have on them, and he describes a “human-microbe symbiosis,” going so far as to refer to each of us as having a “microbial self.”49 Though this affords greater recognition of the work of bacteria, it still leaves the human self as the dominant life form.
As Linda Nash, a scholar of environmental history, points out, the modern conceptualization of the body relies on a bacteriological notion of disease as existing outside an otherwise healthful person, and this model applies to pollution, too. Although her concern is to highlight the deleterious effects of environmental toxins by reclaiming the ecological body—one more porous and situated within a landscape and polluted environment—this model is useful as one looking inward to the landscapes of the microbiome as well.50 The body as a dynamic ecological space, a metaphorical rain forest, helps to recognize it beyond that of the human sentient being. Stefan Helmreich, an anthropologist who studies science, suggests that a reconceptualized nomenclature for humans, Homo microbis, may better reflect the makeup of human beings and the “microscopic companion species” laced throughout our bodies that are intrinsic to who we think we are as humans. Heather Paxson, an anthropologist who studies food, offers “microbiopolitics” to frame the ways in which “microscopic biologic agents” configure not just our microbiome, but also politics in public health and food safety, and how humans arrange structures of power.51 Furthermore, Helmreich describes “symbiopolitics” as a term to refer to “the densely political relations among many entangled living things—not just microbial—at many scales.”52 I build on symbio- and microbiopolitics and argue that we must also engage these organisms as users with technologies in and of the body.
Instead of referring to bacteria as residents or inhabitants as they are also sometimes called, claiming bacteria as constituents acknowledges their greater agential power. For instance, constituents in political districts allow elected officials to represent their interests; the will of individuals is not always followed, but nonetheless inherent to the structure is the assumption that constituents should have a voice in larger political dynamics. Bacteria should not be afforded something akin to citizenship rights; however, keeping bacterial agency in the frame of larger health systems would serve humans well. By thinking about bacteria as constituents of the human body, a more robust, complex, and all-encompassing understanding of human-bacterial relationships emerges. Labeling bacteria as constituents avoids the problematic constructions of the “host” body in which a universal male bears the burden of feeding the greedy invaders. Never mind that the body is not a feminine hostess (also problematic in other ways), in which the body simply becomes the site for ungrateful and usually unwelcome guests. The more accurate description is that some bacteria are simply part and parcel of being human—Homo microbis—and considering them as constituents affords them a bit of recognition in the larger body politic.
Bacteria, and, for that matter, any unwanted organism that threatens to do harm, accumulate meanings of “the other” by the language used about them. For example, my father, an agronomist, often described a weed as a “plant out of place.” As a child, I was comforted that the weed was still a plant that might do well somewhere else, just not alongside a corn crop. My critical reading now recognizes the power of labeling a plant a “weed,” which disparages one plant while simultaneously naturalizing the legitimacy of another. This construction of a species “out of place” is prominent to descriptions of many ecosystems. Banu Subramanium, a scholar of race, gender, and science, discusses the political costs of describing these out-of-place organisms in racialized terms, and the prejudices laced into tropes such as “invasive species” versus “native species.” This proclivity of naming conveys information about systems and structures of power.53 How bacteria have been labeled and described in reference to colonization is a political description as well. Reading bacteria through postcolonial and indigenous studies changes the frame of reference. The colonizers (in this case human bodies) take on the assumption that they are the colonized and translate indigeneity onto themselves.54 The (formerly) indigenous bacteria assert their sovereignty, form colonies and rebel, taking on the pejorative role of an invader. In this model, the body is not a holistic ecosystem, but an empire that has claimed its primacy and indigeneity, and thereby exerts dominance, power, and control to eliminate its unwanted subjects. Even language to reduce MRSA in hospital intensive-care units refers to “universal decolonization strategies.”55 Language paints an antagonistic picture of bacteria, an enemy that science and medicine must thwart.
Moving away from this a bit, and assuming that microflora are contingent communities with agency, one way to rethink the relationship of bacteria and bodies is with a feminist analysis. Feminism provides a means to examine nontraditional communities and those excluded or devalued by dominant power structures, and it reveals biases that tend to privilege one group while simultaneously dismissing another. A feminist-studies reading of TSS focusing on S. aureus as a marginalized community of the body demonstrates not only how bacteria are overlooked, but also the detrimental consequences of doing so. This framework provides a more inclusive reading of the body, not only as a microbiome, but also as one with constituent communities that may be affected in different ways by technological interventions. As one commenter about the microbiome project on the NPR Shots health blog noted, “What if the microbes stage a revolution? Or go on strike? Would they vote Dem[ocratic] or Rep[ublican]? What effect do the TSA scanners have on them?”56 Though these comments are meant to be humorous, the writer captures the sentiment that we do not control our microbes, and we need to think more comprehensively about how technologies affect them and, in turn, how these interactions may affect us.
In fact, these technological encounters with the microbiome can have reactive and unexpected consequences. I contribute the term “biocatalytic technology” to better interpret, analyze, and understand technobiological interfaces. Biocatalytic technologies are those technologies that are not primarily dangerous to humans, but have the potential to catalyze microbial activity that may result in harm because of their use. For example, the microbial activity may precipitate an infection located at cellular interfaces and crevices of hip replacements, or it could produce toxins deadly to human organ systems. The dual analysis requires one of technological agency and microbiopolitics. This means looking at bacteria as constituents of the human body, with the potential to interact with technologies and become biocatalytic agents. The term “biocatalytic technology” offers a way to understand the actualization of reactive tampon technology with constituent bacteria. The term also provides language to interrogate those technologies that seem safe, yet still may precipitate other forms of harm because of their use.
Not only is it possible for technologies to catalyze change, but the bacteria can also interact with them as unanticipated technological users. This is an important conceptual departure because only humans are presumed to be technological
