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 -