Longevity+ seminar #2: The biosocial entanglements of food,

We are cordially inviting you to the second seminar in a series organized by our new CLEA Longevity Plus Research Group: a transdisciplinary approach to wellbeing. The group aims to integrate and elaborate scientific approaches towards a long and happy life.

CLEA Longevity+ Research Group The biosocial entanglements of food, epigenomes, microbiomes, and environments in more-than-human becomings and healthby Wim Van Daele

Tuesday 18 May 202117:00 - 18:30 CET

Zoom Meeting link: https://zoom.us/j/94280412798?pwd=WFkxQVMySjdKN3lPYWF5QWdIeGZBUT09

Meeting ID: 942 8041 2798

Passcode: dzh9P8

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/592KV2xrc

With the proliferation in studies of the epigenome and microbiome, the timeless and decontextualized genome has been supplanted by a more responsive, reactive, malleable genome and situated biology. As such, the human being has actually turned into a more-than-human becoming, where the continuous co-evolvement of human and other-than-human beings calls for a radically interdisciplinary framework and cooperation between social scientists and microbiologists (and others). In this presentation, I will suggest that possibilities for such a radical interdisciplinary cooperation lie in the examination of the biosocial network of food and food systems and their multiple pathways and entanglements with the socio-cultural organization of life, on the one hand, and the microbial and molecular regulation of life, on the other. I will also highlight some of the implications of this approach for the conceptualization of health, whether in terms of Planetary Health, One Health, or more-than-human health which I propose. I will discuss these issues by going through some exciting examples of such cooperation by others as well as my own experiences in setting up pilot projects in Ecuador and Sri Lanka in cooperation with epigenome and microbiome researchers.

Bio:Wim Van Daele is associate professor at the department of nutrition and public health at the University of Agder where he is also attached to the top priority research center Lifecourse Nutrition. He has obtained his Joint PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies and Comparative Science of Cultures in Belgium in 2013 and was a visiting scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, the University of Chicago and Columbia University. During his postdoc at the University of Oslo, he increasingly started delving into the fields of medical anthropology, epigenetics, nutrition and (gut) microbiota. He is currently developing and starting up pilot projects on food systems, gut microbiomes and more-than-human health, grounded in a solid interdisciplinary cooperation together with relevant specialists and research institutes.