In Tsing’s profoundly symbolic writing The Mushroom at the End of the World, she juxtaposes the human notion of progress with the idea of capitalism and the generally uncertain future that we face. What I found interesting in Tsings description of “progress” is that she clearly conceptualizes it as a process that doesn’t always mean betterment— even though its connotation in colloquial terms is often as such. We typically associate progress with improvement, going towards a desired future result. However, Tsing examines our future through the lens of the rigid phenomenon of capitalism, and how the progress of capitalism has contributed to an ambiguous future reality. She utilizes the mushroom trade as a symbol to show how capitalist tendencies today strive to make everything a commodity for business success. She expresses this frustration evidently when she describes that the human desire for concentration of wealth has historically made “both humans and nonhumans into resources for investment” (page 20). By reducing living objects to “resources for investment” in this line, Tsing has illustrated the exploitative nature of capitalist tendencies and leaves the reader with an ominous, and overtly precarious, vision of how this could potentially have ramifications for our future.
In attempting to relate the Tsing reading to the other readings about ethnography and research methods, I found that Tsing does an excellent job of attention to detail that is so characteristic of ethnographies as outlined by Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw Chapter 1. Tsing’s impactful choices of detail include descriptions from both the past and the present in her documentation of the mushroom trade. Not only does she provide context for her claims through the historical analysis of the significance of the mushroom and its Japanese roots, she also provides analogous symbols such as the railroad and logging industries mentioned at the very beginning of the chapter. Tsing also effectively conveys her information in a way that reinforces her central juxtaposition— ecology versus economy, and how this will come to affect and contribute to the future of the human race on earth, and what role the notion of progress has in this uncertainty.
From the reading, I am left wondering about how Tsing will further the mushroom analogy throughout the book to illustrate the abuses of modern day industry and how human greed for wealth has affected our future. So, if I had to formulate a question— How has the human drive for progress created uncertainty in our future… What are specific examples of this that we witness in our everyday lives? In what ways have we seen “progress” be representative of something that didn’t necessarily improve?
(Posted late as I just received access to the “new post” feature, as activated in class).