ドミニク・チェン Dominique ChenStarting with the January 2026 issue of Sekai (Iwanami Shoten), I have launched a new serialized column titled “Lessons with the Non-Human: An Auto/Ethnography of Entanglements.” Through the JST RISTEX–funded project “Planetary Care Between Humans and Non-Humans,” under the program “Building Social Systems Where Care Can Take Root,” the series will explore and reflect on reciprocal care relationships with non-human and more-than-human beings.
Drawing on everyday engagements with nukadoko and fermenting microorganisms, the text explores how humans and nonhumans might live together and reweave their relationships. Rather than treating microorganisms merely as objects of management, it proposes a perspective that reconsiders technology as a medium for sensing and responding to these “voiceless others.” The bodily sensibilities and practices of care found in traditional fermentation and brewing sites unsettle modern technological views that have prioritized efficiency and control. Precisely because we live in an era in which digital technologies strongly shape everyday life, the work quietly yet powerfully questions the possibility of moving beyond anthropocentrism and reconfiguring our distances and sensibilities toward other species.
