Carmen McLeod, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw and Brigitte Nerlich have published an article on Covid-19 and human-microbial relations

Carmen McLeod, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw and Brigitte Nerlich have published an article on Covid-19 and human-microbial relations in the Journal Anthropology in Action: Journal for Applied Anthropology in Policy and Practice. It is part of a special issue on 'COVID-19 and the Transformation of Intimacy: Microbes – Bodies', edited by Andrew Dawson and Simone Dennis. The open access article is entitled "Fearful Intimacies: COVID-19 and the Reshaping of Human–Microbial Relations". 

Abstract

This article explores how COVID-19 could be reshaping human–microbial relations in and beyond the home. Media sources suggest that intimacies of companionability or ambivalence are being transformed into those of fearfulness. While a probiotic sociocultural approach to human–microbial relations has become more powerful in recent times, it seems that health and hygiene concerns associated with COVID-19 are encouraging the wholesale use of bleach and other cleaning agents in order to destroy the potential microbial ‘enemies’ in the home. We provide a brief background to shifting public health discourses on managing microbes in domestic settings over recent decades across the industrialised world, and then contrast this background with emerging advice on COVID-19 from news and advertisement sources. We conclude with key areas for future research.