CFP: The Human Diversity Dilemma: Navigating the Intersection of Microbiomes, Ethics, and Society in Africa

Human microbiomes are important ecosystems with a significant contribution to various health and disease phenotypes. Understanding differences between populations and their microbiomes can help generate health recommendations and interventions to prevent and cure wide-spread non-communicable diseases like pulmonary, metabolic, and neurocognitive diseases. The main aimof the fieldofmicrobiome research in health is to uncover the combination of lifestyle factors and microbial communities that promote human health.  

Several research groups and research initiatives are working around the world to achieve this goal. Like in genomics, in microbiome research it is central to generate knowledge including minoritized groups and non-White populations to overcome the data gap resulting from their underrepresentation in databases. The inclusion of diversity in databases is done using traditional race and ethnicity categories, distinctions based on lifestyle and subsistence strategies, as well as generalizations like Western or non-Western to refer to populations, diets and microbiomes.Paradoxically, the use of these categories do not always work toward the inclusion of diverse and minoritizedpopulations. Rather, thesecan impede the scientific goal of studying different populations and their microbiomes in order toidentify the main factors affecting microbiome composition and their connection to health states across all populations.  

While the field focuses on global scientific goals like global health, possibilities to do research and achieve these goals vary locally. There are still important economic differences between countries in the Global North (and their historical colonial wealth) and those of the Global South (most of them ex-colonies) that translate into current scientific capacity. These differences are experienced today as human capital, economic, and infrastructural challenges and dependencies that directly or indirectly have an effect on the epistemic questions asked and the quality of the answers generated. They also introduce several social and ethical challenges that result from power hierarchies within the research community.  

Building on current debates in the history and philosophy of biology, values in science, feminist and decolonial philosophy, as well as history and philosophy of race, this special issue aims to understand the intricate connection between epistemic, ethical and economic challenges faced by human microbiome research practiced in the Global South, more specifically in Africa. We aim to investigate the complex relation between the microbiome, factors affecting its composition, local histories of race, and technological and economic dependencies to provide a more complex view on the current field of microbiome research.  

In the contemporary context of evidence-based science, this special issue aims to provide a critical understanding of the solutions proposed in themicrobiome sciences, ensuring they are contextually and epistemically useful, ethically grounded, and do not reproduce existing systems of domination and discrimination. By promoting critical thinking based on scientific input, we strive to serve society at large, addressing pressing issues such as reducing inequalities between the Global North and South, and developing health solutions that are tailored contextually and equitably. 

Moreover, this special issue aims at multi- and interdisciplinarity. We invite medical and ecological microbiologists, philosophers, historians, and social scientists to submittheir contributions dealing with these and similar issues from the perspective of integrated history and philosophy of biology informed by debates about science and values, and decolonial and feminist frameworks. Interdisciplinary contributions are especially welcomed. We strive to develop cooperation in Africa and internationally, and welcome contributions from authors worldwide. Possible topic lines are:  

1. Race, ethnicity and lifestyle as factors influencing the microbiome  

Studying different populations is central in microbiome research to define their microbiome and health specificities and similarities to potentially generalize results. However, the use of descriptors like “race”, “ethnicity”, or “hunter-gatherer”, “Western” and “non-Western” can lead to epistemic and non-epistemic biases. On the epistemic side, the use of these categories can makeresearchers miss the real factors that impactpopulations (as those categories are often used as proxies for other factors) or can lead to the misplacement of individuals into groups that may not be relevant for treatment or risk-factor assessment. On the ethical side, these categories can, for example, lead to building stereotypes of primitivity about populations, racialization, othering, and discrimination (NuñezCasal2024, Nieves Delgado and Baedke 2021, Benezra 2020). Thus, we need to ask: Are population descriptors useful or effective in microbiome research? Are there more promising ways to understand the causal relation between, for example, different lifestyles and the microbiome?

2. Colonialism, technological dependencies and biomedical research in Africa 

Colonial powers had heterogenous effects on the development of their colonies (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2017). Today, historical wealth inequality between (former) colonial powers and their (ex)colonies continues to create important differences between what is known today as the Global North and the Global South (Jones 2013). What is the impact of this historical and present-day inequality on microbiome research done today in Africa? Howare we to reduce these persisting inequalities? What is the epistemic impact of technological dependency and asymmetrical power relations on microbiome research? 

3. Local health challenges in a global scientific context  

What are the central health needs in Africa? How can microbiome research better address these needs? Different authors have highlighted the need to redirect research to focus on the needs of local communities (Mangola et al. 2022) instead of fostering helicopter research and bioprospecting practices (Haelewaters et al. 2021) or parasitic research (Smith 2018). As a response to this problem, authors have proposed different strategies to “give back” and do research in more ethical ways. An open question is how effective these strategies are, for example,calls for ethics and the inclusion of local knowers in different ways in microbiome research.   

Further questions should be directed to Aline Potiron [email protected], Phila [email protected] and Abigail Nieves Delgado: [email protected]