The Tsing reading prompted my reflection on the relationship between various meanings of “nature”: such as “human nature” – one’s disposition – or “Mother Nature” – the source of life and wild spaces. In addition, I am currently reading William Cronon’s Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (1996) for my Environmental Humanities course and was excited to see mention of that author’s other work, Nature’s Metropolis in the Introduction. Such discussions of how “first nature” and “second nature” are used to address ways of living and developing wild spaces; this provides a topical approach to modern challenges that are coming to the forefront in a time of global warming. Keeping with these topics, “third nature” will be a unique concept for me to grapple with as an anthropology student with a focus on environmental topics. Growth of “natural” products in human-disturbed regions addresses questions raised in Matsutake research as well as confronting the role of political strain in global turmoil. Tracing ecological understanding across time will allow for a broader conception of the connection between human evolution, economy, and environment.
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I loved that you mentioned William Cronon in this post because I was also reminded of him and his writing while reading the first chapter of the Tsing book. The specific piece that comes to mind is “The Trouble With Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” This piece addresses human progress and how we often regard it as separated from nature or, in Cronon’s words, wilderness. It discusses how we, as humans, often romanticize the concept of wilderness as something untouched or unaffected by humans. However, Cronon (as well as Tsing) argues that nothing is unrelated to mankind. We often consider human progress and urbanization as juxtaposed to environmentalism; however, both of these authors show that this is not the case. Tsing, specifically, advocates for a holistic ethnography that recognizes the interactions with nature: their disposition, their commonalities with the natural world, and even the movements to protect the natural world.
Hi Madison! I was also drawn to Tsing’s mention of “first, second, and third natures” though admittedly, this is my first time ever encountering them. I find it interesting that she defines “third nature” as survival in spite of capitalism, though in the prologue, she also refers to the third nature of mushrooms in the context of the fall of the USSR, a decidedly not capitalist state. I’m not an anthropology student, nor am I studying anything environmentally focused, so I’d love to hear more about why you’re grappling with the concept of “third nature”. To me, I feel like it goes hand-in-hand with evolution (though I may be misunderstanding first/second nature as well): if first nature is human-matsutake interaction, and second-nature the way humans and capitalism have affected the growing regions/growth of matsutake, then third-nature is matsutake’s ability to at least partially ignore first and second nature.