The Mushroom at the End of the World

Moving beyond the human–nature dichotomy through biocultural approaches: including ecological well-being in resilience indicators

“…More recently, "multi-species ethnography" looks to better integrate the strong and changing interconnections between humans and nature. It focuses on the multiple relations people have with their environment and how these relations make people become humans (Kohn 2007, Haraway 2008, Kirksey and Helmreich 2010, Ogden et al 2013, Tsing 2015. This movement could bring new concepts and methods, and help improve mutualism between human and ecological well-being, especially if it also includes the study of the role of nonhumans.…”

Unfinished

“…63 The challenge, it seems, is to integrate interspecies relations and shifting ecological contexts into our understanding of "biosocial becomings" without obscuring 64 -in the pursuit of, for example, an "anthropology beyond the human" 65 -the unavoidable fact that the fields of our fieldwork are both peopled by human communities in their multiple engagements and perspectives 66 and shaped by the forces and flows of global capitalism. 67 In The Mushroom at the End of The World, Tsing shows what it might look like to attend to the broad weave of life-human and nonhuman-in the increasingly precarious "blasted landscapes" of our "worldwide ruination" without losing sight of po liti cal economy (or assuming its totality).…”

“…67 In The Mushroom at the End of The World, Tsing shows what it might look like to attend to the broad weave of life-human and nonhuman-in the increasingly precarious "blasted landscapes" of our "worldwide ruination" without losing sight of po liti cal economy (or assuming its totality). 68 Rejecting strongly held beliefs about pro gress (economic, scientific, or other wise), the anthropologist calls on us to cultivate our "arts of noticing" and to "look around rather than ahead. " 69 While highlighting the precarious yet vital "possibility of life in cap i tal ist ruins," her capacious forms of attention bring nonhumans into the fold without hiding from capital or the state: "assemblages," she insists, "drag po liti cal economy inside them, and not just for humans. "…”

“…68 Rejecting strongly held beliefs about pro gress (economic, scientific, or other wise), the anthropologist calls on us to cultivate our "arts of noticing" and to "look around rather than ahead. " 69 While highlighting the precarious yet vital "possibility of life in cap i tal ist ruins," her capacious forms of attention bring nonhumans into the fold without hiding from capital or the state: "assemblages," she insists, "drag po liti cal economy inside them, and not just for humans. " 70 Shifting from living beings and ecosystems to material objects, how might an anthropology of becoming also address the vibrancy of matter without losing sight of the human?…”

Guest Editorial: Alternative Valuations

“…Needless to say, no matter how such spheres are conceptualized and defined, they will frequently overlap, and both past and recent anthropological work has been concerned with identifying their interrelationships, including for instance how economic valuation is symbolically constituted (Sahlins 1976); how commodification and the 'individualized' entrepreneurial action praised by neoliberal economics depends on relational factors such as kinship (Elyachar 2005), or on gift-giving and reciprocity (Tsing 2015); or how political 'values' and objects of governance become organized through numerical rankings and indicators (Shore and Wright 2015). The role of economic performativity stressed by scholars focusing on science and technology studies (e.g.…”