This week we had the pleasure to be joined by Nikolai Siimes, who is a more than human geographer at Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland. In addition to his academic research, he has worked for almost a decade in the wine sector in different capacities. He describes his PhD as an ethnography of wine, which uses wine as a case to follow microbes and human–microbe relations in agriculture. He uses “sensory and embodied ethnographic methods to examine microbial agency, agricultural governance, and the sensory-material politics of food and drink.” Nikolai starts our conversation by reminding us that microbes are everywhere and make up everything. Nikolai brings us to the microbial level and helps us think through their worlds and worldings and how our actions affect the microbial realm, for example with the use of pesticides in vineyards. This work takes microbes seriously as cultural agents within the world, rejecting simple accounts of microbes as inert and mechanistic. 

If you want to learn more about Nikolai’s work, check out the links below:

University Profile https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/nikolai-siimes 

If you want to read some of Nikolai’s publications:

Having a drink with awkward Brett: Brettanomyces, taste(s) and wine/markets - An article on Awkward Brettanomyces https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nzg.12368

Making Time with Microbes - A recent book chapter discussing microbial temporalities and sensory ways of relating to wine microbes http://doi.org/10.4324/9781032632995-11