Mapping microbial stories: Creative microbial aesthetic and cross-disciplinary intervention in understanding nurses’ infection prevention practices

Consistent implementation of hand-washing within the hospital environment remains a challenge in infection prevention (IP) procedures. IP is one of a number of measures to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). A cross-disciplinary team was assembled to experiment with different ways of visualising the microbial. The paper details a comparative experimental design where nurses (n = 2) performed a series of routine care procedures in a mock-ward setting where traces of coloured ultra-violet glow-powders had been purposely placed, first with routine hand-washing and second without routine hand-washing. The results presented as a series of photos, video-clips, ethnographic observations and nurse interviews explore nurse–microbial relations and the potential for affective and embodied encounters with microbial worlds to generate new insight in IP. We argue for creating unfamiliar aesthetics that engage the sensate as an intervention in established IP education. The aesthetic rendered invisible microbes visible through techno-artistic practice. The performance term “devising” was used to analyse the cross-disciplinary methodological process. Finally, we consider the potential for nurses to act as microbial citizens as they extend their care for the human to entail the need to care for the microbial, perhaps not to kill but to relocate the risky pathogen, as part of a commitment to multispecies living in a world with AMR.