Making kin with more-than-human heritage: entangled care ethics in sourdough breadmaking

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of care and its complicated relationship with the field of heritage, especially when transposed to encompass a more-than-human world. Using the practice of contemporary sourdough breadmaking during COVID-19 as a starting point, I think through the ethical issues implicated in interspecies relationships of care in the backdrop of large-scale anthropogenic trends, where change, decay, and loss have become synonymous with progress. Sourdough is a highly mutable non-human entity, which holds many valuable lessons in creating resilience and generative interspecies relationships. A close reading of the nuanced ethics in kinship relationships built between sourdough microbes and the human body reveals that the lesson of sourdough inserted into conversations of care lies in its situated relationships rather than in its ontologies. Thinking of care with this in mind opens up a space to critically reexamine what it means to care for heritage that is changing, as well as questions how the field of heritage could carve out a more substantial space of interaction for interspecies- and non-human interactions moving forward.

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