Walking with Permafrost Microbial Communities: How to Encounter the Leaking Messiness of the Melting Worlds

This paper investigates barefoot walking on permafrost land a
possible co-living with the microbes released from the thawing
permafrost due to climate breakdown. Barefoot walking is
investigated as a method to study the experience of the changing
permafrost condition and peat relations through sensorial and
corporeal encounter that is guided by the microbial movement
patterns. It juxtaposes the vulnerability of the permafrost with the
vulnerability of the human body: the human activity affects the
permafrost through climate breakdown but what is the liminal

microcosmos in between the barefoot sole and the more-than-
human underneath it; freezing, warming and releasing as the water

permeate the pores giving them hydration solid forms [1] which are
possibly shared with the time travelers from the permafrost?
The more-than-human of walking methodologies [2], in this case
with the microbes, can be considered by engaging with feminist
new materialism and posthumanism, informed by multispecies,
sensory ethnography in Abisko, North Sápmi, Sweden. This paper
studies the movements of the microbial life and focuses on the
repetitive vibrations they have as a method for assemblages that
manifest in artworks and walks as study case examples. The
microbial paths are experienced in microscopic scale and enlarged
into human movements.