Homework

Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
“Governing Microbial Kinship through Care-Based Technologies // The Nomadic Care Station for Scoby” 1. Biological engineering application or tool The biological engineering application proposed in this project is the Nomadic Care Station for SCOBY (NCS4S), a portable technological system designed to support the continuous care of a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) while traveling with it. Drawing upon Donna Haraway’s concept of making kin and my long-term involvement with the NGO Thr34d5, this project reframes microbial life not as a resource to be optimized, extracted, or scaled, but as a companion species embedded in a relationship of interdependence with humans. Rather than asking how bacteria can better serve human needs, the project asks how technologies can be designed to enforce ethical obligations toward microbial life.