The Mundane and the New Normal: Translating Microbiome Research to “Tell Hong Kong’s Story Well”

This chapter explores the mundane aspect of genomics through an ethnography at WAND, a university research institution focusing on gut microbiome science, illustrating how its knowledge practices interact with techno-national culture and regulations, local biologies and healthcare systems, and techno-global imaginaries after the mass protests in 2019 and the COVID pandemic. We show how microbiome scientists reassert the promises of genomics within a new socio-political normal enacted by the Hong Kong (HK) government and the changing geopolitical landscape in Asia. The scientists practice translational research, moving across various scales to create new value chains and capitalize on new hopes that HK will be repositioned as Asia’s “innovation hub.” Gut microbes are mobilized to experiment with and formulate new biomedical interventions that benefit public health and are capitalized in the probiotics market. The search for good microbes is imbued with the scientists’ promise to redefine Hong Kong’s specificity with new forms of simultaneous relatedness and incompatibility, and genomic indebtedness to mainland China. These scientists echo the call of politicians and bureaucrats by translating microbiome research into the public realm in their mundane laboratory life, carrying out their matters of care and concern.