One time my gut and psyche talked to each other

This dissertation started from a fascination with the microbes that live in the human gut and
their connection with mental health. How can we talk about this connection? What hopes and
imaginaries about a healthy life arise when microbes are connected with mental health? How
do we, more broadly, make sense of the body and psyche? The dissertation takes these
questions as a point of departure for exploring personal experiences of the connection
between gut and psyche, and developed collective memory-work (Haug et al., 1999) as
methodology in a museum context. Research participants wrote memories under the topic
One time my gut and psyche talked to each other… and became co-researchers in the
exploration of their own and each other's personal memories. The dissertation is based on
empirical material from three memory-work groups with adult participants. The material
includes the 16 memories that the participants explored, observations and transcripts of the
group conversations. This transdisciplinary project was conducted at Medical Museion-a
university museum and research unit at the Department of Public Health, University of
Copenhagen.

The dissertation poses three research questions: (1) What does microbiome research promise
in terms of blurring distinctions between body, mind and environment, within the context of
contemporary public health concerns? (2) How can collective memory-work facilitate the
development of articulations that allow participants to develop sensibilities to often
unarticulated experiences of how gut and psyche connect? (3) How do memory-work
participants articulate experiences of gut-psyche connections and mobilize distinctions
between body and mind, and with which implications for understandings of body, self and
health?

The first research question is addressed via a narrative literature review, which explores
promissory language around microbiome research in academic and popular science
communication publications. The review situates the dissertation in relation to microbiome
research and frames a methodological shift in the memory-work away from foregrounding
discussion of the microbiome and towards exploring connections between gut and psyche.
The second research question is primarily explored by conceptualizing memory-work as
experimentation with articulating experiences of the gut, the psyche and how they connect.
The third research question is answered by investigating when and with which implications
memories about gut-psyche-connections create distinctions between body and psyche.

Key findings of the dissertation include the following: (1) The potentials of microbiome
research are communicated in a promissory language, expressing promises of holism. The
dissertation argues that this mobilization of the notion of holism poses challenges for
understanding the complexity in concepts of the body, self and health in relation to
microbiome research. Moreover, the promissory language increases and extend the suspense
and impasse around the potentials of microbiome research. Doing so, provide ground for
generating cruel optimism (Berlant, 2011). (2) Memory-work on gut and psyche actualize
fundamental questions about our bodies, selves and health. This may give rise to new selfrealizations
for the memory-work participants and also actualize ethical dilemmas about the
therapeutic and care-related matters of memory-work. The dissertation argues for addressing
the ethical dilemmas in the memory-work collective; the dilemmas can become key in
cultivating a response-able (Haraway, 2016) research practice when the participants
experiment with articulating their experiences. Moreover, the dissertation shows how the
cultivation of response-ability can be transformed and rearticulated as an ideal of care when
presenting participant voices anew in an exhibition context. (3) The dissertation shows that
memory-work on gut and psyche differ widely in form and content. Meanings of gut, psyche
and how they connect cannot be presupposed. Instead, they illuminate how notions of gut and
psyche can be employed to articulate the self and navigate social norms and expectations.
More generally, the dissertation argues for recognizing (rather than limiting) these multiple
and dynamic meanings in explorations of personal experiences of body, self and health.
The dissertation takes form as an article-based dissertation, with a synopsis and three articles.
Theoretically, the dissertation places itself primarily in critical psychology and postpsychology,
in addition to drawing connections to key themes in medical humanities, science
and technology studies (STS) and feminist science studies. Beyond the specific findings
outlined above, the contribution of the dissertation is to articulate and illustrate a research
methodology for exploring situated, diverse and dynamic meanings of mind and body when
they are mobilized to create meaning in personal experiences of the world.

References
Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Haug, F., Andresen, S., Bünz-Elfferding, A., Hauser, K., Lang, U., Laudan, M., Lüdeman, M., Meir, U., Nemitz,
B., Niehoff, E., Prinz, R., Räthzel, N., Scheu, M., & Thomas, C. (1999). Female sexualization: A
collective work of memory. Verso Classics.