On possibilities for salvaged polyphonic ecologies in a ruined world. Review of Tsing, A.L. 2015 The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
The Mushroom at the End of the World by anthropologist Anna Tsing is a heterogeneous ecosystem of a book tracking the socioecological presences of a multiplicitous entity, the matsutake mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake). The outcome of a collaborative ethnographic project, Mushroom, is set to be a classic in the emerging genre of ‘multispecies ethnography’. This is a movement that embraces diverse interrelationships between humans and other-than-human natures, creating a
much-needed decentring of human exceptionalism in understanding the necessarily ecological lives of social groups and individuals. Tsing’s emphasis on the entities and social practices with which matsutake is entangled pushes boundaries of thinking in multispecies endeavours beyond the familiarity of companion species more closely related to ourselves (e.g. Haraway, 2008). ...