Fermentation Fetishism and the Emergence of a Political Zymology

Abstract

A fermentation renaissance is afoot. This revival has given rise to work in the environmental humanities that mobilizes DIY fermentation to ground a progressivist politics. We share in this enthusiasm, but articulate a concern that imputing an essential politics to fermentation is not possible, and risks turning it into a fetish. Drawing on a range of work on fermentation, some of which has raised similar concerns, we outline a political zymology (zymology being the science of fermentation), channeling the concerns of political ecology to facilitate a critical engagement with fermentation’s diversity and avoid its fetishization. We begin by defining fermentation, situating the fermentation zeitgeist in the ongoing microbial moment, and reviewing recent scholarly work on fermentation that proposes an essential fermentation politics. We then develop a framework for political zymology, articulating four dimensions for differentiating fermentations—ecology, microbiopolitics, political economy, and cultural politics—and, in doing so, de-fetishizing it. In conclusion, we offer a typology of modes of political zymology, grounding our hope that this framework will engage colleagues thinking with fermentation, and gesturing toward an additional, complementary mode of political zymology of collaboration across disciplines and professions.