Tsing\u2019s writing stood out to me for her discussion surrounding the theme of precarity, through the medium of matsutake. I like how she ties together growth of the Japanese-native mushroom to regional industrialization and globalization, as part of an uncertain process that showcases \u201ccollaborative survival\u201d and indeterminacy, which lies at heart of the systemic understanding of \u201cprogress\u201d. Tsing\u2019s description of how the transformation of peasant woodlands have affected matsutake growth supports her argument that \u201cprecarity is the condition of our time\u201d, exemplifying the correlation between the \u201cfirst nature\u201d and the \u201csecond nature\u201d. I admire Tsing\u2019s emphasis on how capitalist transformation of the environment, precarious in its nature to the ecological relations, could cause responding changes\u2014that are also unpredicted\u2014to the capitalist system. I want to quote her direct words on page 20 because I think they are the key to understand Tsing\u2019s message in a comprehensive manner:
\n\u201cWhat if, as I\u2019m suggesting, precarity is the condition of our time\u2014or, to put it an- other way, what if our time is ripe for sensing precarity? What if precarity, indeterminacy, and what we imagine as trivial are the center of the systematicity we seek?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tsing\u2019s writing stood out to me for her discussion surrounding the theme of precarity, through the medium of matsutake. I like how she ties together growth of the Japanese-native mushroom to regional industrialization and globalization, as part of an uncertain … Continue reading