Tsing claims that her intent behind the project is not reactionary nor conservative but subversive. I find Tsing’s way of arguing for emancipating human imagination fascinating. Human beings are caught up in the narrative of progress accompanied by simplicity. From the other book, “The Dawn of Everything,” I realized that during human history as a species, its diversity disobeys the “development to complexity” and environmental determinism. For example, the assumption of linear progress gives birth to taxonomical terms for human society (e.g., bands, tribes, chiefdom, and civilization) that not only insufficiently but also inaccurately capture possibilities of human living in the past. In a word, our inability to imagine new ways of achieving equality is because we are confined in our superiority of being at the forefront of development. From the article, “At the precipice of time”, I came to know how the crystal palace, where the world exposition was held during the last century, reflects the age of equipoise that affords to erase the cultural particularity in the human development across the world. At that time, people who used spears for hunting were likely to be considered savages who were trapped in the past by Western society. To decolonize and de-patronize humans and human constructions, Tsing takes a step further to find assemblages of patchy rhythms that are delivered by wilderness and ruination. Nietzsche argues that human languages are anthropocentric in his article “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.” Tsing seems to present that human imagination is anthropocentric due to its power of construction.
2 Responses to Subversive Imagination
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
To avoid some confusion, I am responding to the original post, but I like the questions that you have posed, Angela! Analyzing how Tsing intends to approach her research and how far she intends to go appears to be rather important, especially since she already hints at her interest in cross-cultural connection through the relationship established with the matsutake mushroom and societal growth as well as between Oregon railroads and environmental discourse in the very same state. From my interpretation, connection appears to be what Tsing is aiming for in this work, and it will be interesting to see just how far she intends to go with it.
As for the initial post, I agree with the points you have argued! The notion that we are “confined in our superiority of being at the forefront of development” and, hence, unable to create beneficial opportunities for ourselves is very poignant in today’s environment. The note that certain peoples were perceived to be “savage” or “trapped in the past” is also very prominent in spite of the increased awareness and broadening perspectives permeating throughout academic and more casual spaces; there are still some to this day who believe such ideas and do not attempt to investigate further or alter their perceptions. This “superiority” is as alive as ever. What I think also plays into that sense is the precarity that Tsing briefly touched on in the first chapter. It is described as “the condition of being vulnerable to others,” which is something that is, admittedly, not the easiest state of being to channel (Tsing, 2015: 20). The concept is not discussed in length as it is used for Tsing to segue into the central topic of progress, but I still think it is important to take into question when considering the LACK of progress evident in so many aspects of our society. Though it is necessary to stray from the status quo, as Tsing points out, the unknown can be scary and uncomfortable to many, resulting in the desire to stick to what is known. That may be easier, yes, but it is not necessarily better. If the human imagination is truly constructive in nature, then wandering from the familiar seems all but necessary for genuine progress.
(Leaving a comment here because I couldn’t figure out how to create a new post.)
Title: 1/16/23 Culture formation as seen through matsutake mushrooms
I found this ethnography interesting because it traces ethnic formation in the Southeast Asian diaspora through the lens of the matsutake mushroom. I knew culture and economic livelihood were tied together, but it was interesting to read about the extent to which matsutake mushrooms brought the Iu Mien community together in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. One line in particularly struck me in which community members described the matsutake smell as evoking “village life and a child visiting grandparents and chasing dragonflies.” One type of food commodity can unify a community in terms of evoking memories of that ethnic enclave growing and cultural customs such as ways to cook matsutake.
The evidence Tsing uses to make her argument are accounts of her experiences interacting with Iu Mien community members, tasting matsutake mushrooms cooked in different ways, and traveling to trace the commodity chain of matsutake mushrooms. She uses these experiences to argue that matsutake mushrooms are fundamental to a global commodity chain and are key parts of Japanese and Southeast Asian cultures. My question about her methods is how many people does she estimate talking to in her ethnography? And how long and how deep of a relationship did she develop with each of those people?