Podcast Summary

New Books Network: Digestive Belonging, Trans-Species Sensing & Care in America’s Dairyland

Date: February 13, 2026
Guest: Katie Overstreet (Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of Copenhagen)
Hosts: Cecil Marie Henriksen & Sadie Hale

Episode Overview

This episode explores multispecies relationships in American dairy farming, focusing on concepts of "digestive belonging," the agency of microbes, cow-human-microbe entanglements, and practices of care in animal agriculture. The conversation is based on Katie Overstreet’s ethnographic work in Wisconsin’s dairyland, specifically her research into raw milk politics, sensory attunement between cows and humans, and the evolving discussions around positive animal welfare.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Entry into Raw Milk and Multispecies Ethnography

(05:22–07:21)

• Katie Overstreet initially set out to research genetically modified crops but was drawn into the raw milk debate by her dairy farmer interlocutors, who were more concerned with animal rights, hormones in milk (specifically rBST), and microbial effects on consumers.
  • Quote [05:22] – Katie Overstreet:
    “I actually didn't set out to study raw milk... I tried to do a responsive ethnography where I work with the people that I'm interviewing and pay attention to what they're interested in.”
• The research situated her at the intersection of scientific controversy, consumer anxieties, and dairy farm labor practices.

2. Digestive Belonging & Microbial Agency

(06:53–18:57)

• The notion of "digestive belonging" emerged from observing social boundaries mapped through raw milk consumption on Wisconsin farms.
  • Quote [07:21] – Katie Overstreet:
    “Interacting with calves and drinking raw milk were paired as activities that separated people in a bodily sense as being from the farm... or foreign to that environment.”
• Pasteurization became a symbolically charged process, embodying anxieties over industrialization and rural nostalgia.
  • Quote [14:07] – Katie Overstreet:
    “Pasteurization becomes instantiated as like the kind of break between the natural and the cooked in a very Leví-Straussian way... drinking raw milk is partly wrapped up in this rural nostalgia, this imagined rural past where people are more connected to the land and their food.”
• Overstreet describes how both humans and microbes actively participate in shaping bodies and social worlds:
  • Quote [17:26] – Katie Overstreet:
    “It’s not only the humans who are digesting the milk, but also the microbes in the raw milk that are digesting the humans... they have all kinds of effects that we don't fully understand.”
• Digestive belonging is thus both literal (in terms of gut flora) and metaphorical (socially and culturally being "of" the farm).

3. Ethnographic Belonging & Modes of Social Integration

(18:57–26:58)

• Overstreet reflects on partial belonging during extended fieldwork: being adopted by local families, yet remaining somewhat of an outsider.
  • Quote [19:26] – Katie Overstreet:
    “You can learn things from partial belonging. It’s certainly not complete... it’s a very partial belonging.”
• Social belonging in rural Wisconsin is mapped through kinship, shared history, and the prevalence of centennial (multi-generational) dairy farms.
• Embeddedness in local networks affects who can enter the farming community and how farms are passed down or consolidated, influencing demographic shifts and the structure of American agriculture.

4. Trans-Species Sensing: Learning to "Taste Like a Cow"

(28:59–39:02)

• Overstreet discusses fieldwork insights into the cultivation of "shared sense" or sensory attunement between farmers and cows through feed observation and experimentation.
  • Quote [29:58] – Katie Overstreet:
    “If human tastes are social and skilled, what about cow tastes? How could we think about cows as cultural eaters?”
• Multi-species negotiation: both humans and cows shape each other’s preferences and behaviors in the context of feed selection, pasture management, and nutritional experimentation.
• The sensory mutuality is likened to a back-and-forth dynamic: farmers learn to anticipate cow preferences, while cows adapt and sometimes subvert human arrangements through their own bodily choices.

5. Practices of Care and Positive Animal Welfare

(39:02–51:09)

• Overstreet’s participation in the EU-funded LIFT project introduces the shift from minimizing negative states to actively fostering positive states for farm animals.
  • Quote [40:18] – Katie Overstreet:
    “A lot of animal welfare work has focused on … relative improvements... but what you also find... is there are many people who are trying to think beyond what the field has allowed so far.”
• She differentiates between "animal welfare" as a governance regime and "care" as a lived ethos among farmers:
  • Quote [42:57] – Katie Overstreet:
    “That’s why I talk about care, because care has a really different valence than animal welfare... Care is something that farmers talk about, and it's something they wanted to talk about a lot with me... partly because animal rights activists had... spurred a lot of conversations among dairy farmers about how the industry is represented.”
• Overstreet examines the dilemmas and structures (cost-pressure, capitalist imperatives) that shape what counts as care, cautioning against vilifying farmers and advocating for a structural perspective.

6. Reflections on Structural Constraints and Responsibility

(47:11–51:09)

• Care on dairy farms is entangled with industrial imperatives—feeding, housing, and reproductive technologies often designed to maximize productivity.
  • Quote [47:11] – Katie Overstreet:
    “It’s also a mode of pushing productivity... care is integral to that production, but I really wanted to take that apart because it's not always clear what care means or how it's mobilized, especially in relation to new technologies.”
• Overstreet highlights the precarious economic conditions for farmers, structural pressures towards consolidation, and the need for nuanced critique that recognizes farmers’ agency and constraints.

7. Recommendations & Interdisciplinary Inspiration

(51:31–56:14)

• Overstreet advises readers and researchers to look beyond traditional anthropology to speculative fiction for inspiration and creative theory.
  • Quote [51:49] – Katie Overstreet:
    “I was really grateful... that they helped to revive a kind of childhood love of fantasy and speculative fiction in me... They [speculative fiction authors] can offer a kind of feminist otherwise... for experimentation.”
• She advocates for speculative fiction as a space to imagine multispecies relations, referencing The Mount by Carol E.M. Schwiller and other works.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Interacting with calves and drinking raw milk were paired as activities that separated people in a bodily sense as being from the farm... or foreign to that environment.”
  – Katie Overstreet [07:21]
• “Pasteurization becomes instantiated as like the kind of break between the natural and the cooked in a very Leví-Straussian way... drinking raw milk is partly wrapped up in this rural nostalgia...”
  – Katie Overstreet [14:07]
• “It’s not only the humans who are digesting the milk, but also the microbes in the raw milk that are digesting the humans... they have all kinds of effects that we don't fully understand.”
  – Katie Overstreet [17:26]
• “If human tastes are social and skilled, what about cow tastes? How could we think about cows as cultural eaters?”
  – Katie Overstreet [29:58]
• “Care is something that farmers talk about, and it's something they wanted to talk about a lot with me… Care is integral to that production, but I really wanted to take that apart...”
  – Katie Overstreet [42:57, 47:11]
• “I would encourage folks who are interested in this realm of research to also explore what’s going on in speculative fiction, because there’s really interesting offerings there in terms of what can be explored and how we think about some of these issues.”
  – Katie Overstreet [55:40]

Important Segments & Timestamps

• Background & Entry into Raw Milk Research: (05:22–07:21)
• Digestive Belonging & Microbial Agency: (07:21–18:57)
• Social & Ethnographic Belonging: (18:57–26:58)
• Trans-Species Sensing – “Taste Like a Cow”: (28:59–39:02)
• Positive Animal Welfare & Practices of Care: (39:02–51:09)
• Structural Constraints in Dairy: (47:11–51:09)
• Book & Researcher Recommendations: (51:31–56:14)

Memorable Moments

• The metaphor of microbes “digesting” humans, highlighting radical forms of cohabitation and agency.
• Descriptions of mutual sensory learning between cows and humans, and the complexity of formulating cow feed as a negotiation with cow preferences.
• Thoughtful critique of the role of care in industrial agriculture, resisting simple binaries of good/bad or ethical/unethical farming.
• The turn to speculative fiction as anthropological inspiration, underscoring the creative and interdisciplinary possibilities in studying multi-species worlds.

This episode offers a rich, nuanced view of American dairying, microbiopolitics, multispecies ethnography, and the lived complexities of care, belonging, and transformation at the human-animal-microbe interface. It’s equally thought-provoking for scholars of anthropology, environmental humanities, animal studies, and those curious about rural life and food politics.