Monday, April 9, 2018
Week 12 & 13 - Mushroom at the end of the world
What does Tsing mean by the statement that precarity is the predominant mode of living in the contempary world (describe using examples)? How does Tsing describe the commodity chain of the matsutake mushrooms? How are different lives entangled in the accumulation and circulation of the mushrooms? What can the study of the matsutake mushroom global market tell us about the limits and unintended possibilities within the capitalist economy?
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On page two, Tsing describes precarity as “life without the promise of stability”. When describing precarity as a mode of living she says “ the uncontrolled lives of mushrooms are a gift—and a guide—when the controlled world we thought we had fails.” (2). What she means by this is that the original structures and forces of the contemporary capitalist world are incredibly destructive, and so there has erupted a new liminal phase of living that seeks the unstructured, born out of the destruction the “bulldozer” Capitalism has created across the globe. The relatively uncontrolled life lived by the mushroom pickers in the Pacific Northwest provides liberation from previously controlling systems--both political and economic--that failed people in their places of origin. The precarious state of life she is describing is that of structure in ruin, which is happening on a global scale. Her ethnography of the multinational mushroom industry is her example of what people are pushed to as a result of precarity. For example, she describes in chapter five how many people who are mushroom pickers seek their life in the woods as a direct result of war in their home countries. The laborers find freedom in their communal villages in the Oregon wilderness as economic and political refugees.
ReplyDeleteThe commodity chain of the mushrooms begins with those who pick them from the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The selling process is referred to as “open ticket”. The pickers essentially determine what the price will be at any given time (and it fluctuates greatly), and then sell off the mushrooms to specific buyers who then sell them internationally to Japan and other countries. The buyers and pickers often have certain relationships based off a mutual need for profit, and pickers may choose their favorite buyers out of many. The interesting thing about this chain is that the laborers are those who control the market, whether the price rises or drops in a specific season, and the amount of product that is to be sold. This system also inherently involves a risk for the pickers, they may lose everything and there is no guarantee their mushrooms will be sold. The endgame for the pickers is to raise the price of the product, and there is no real accumulation or investment involved (two things contrary to the contemporary capitalist market), and yet the system seems to maintain itself.
Tsing describes the idea that salvage accumulation is not the only form of market that can function under the capitalist system. Salvage accumulation, as she describes, is the “conversion of indigenous knowledge into capitalist returns (63). This involves the accumulation of profit from natural resources and labor. The example of the mushroom trade, however, makes us rethink taken for granted aspects of the market. The author aims to “look for the non capitalist elements on which capitalism depends (66)” in order to deconstruct our ideas of the contemporary global market. The mushroom trade provides an example of an unintended consequence of capitalism in which laborers are controlling both the production and the market itself. It is the inversion of salvage accumulation in many senses.
In the prologue, Tsing defines “precarity” as “life without a promise of stability” (2) and continues in Chapter 1 to question our society’s engrained ideals of progress and the expectation of agency and intention. As capitalistic ideals have rooted themselves deeply into the subconscious of our modern society, the human race has displaced itself from the harmony of the natural world while replacing it with the idea of moving forward as a society, creating an illusion of success, with themselves being the only ones to reap benefits. Tsing exemplifies this idea through the description of the race to build railroads in Oregon, destroying natural landscapes with no thought, in order to gain capital and power; these railroads then leading to access to more capital and therefore more natural destruction (17-19). By stating that precarity is the predominant mode of living in the contemporary world, Tsing is trying to convey the new awareness humans are starting to acquire as they are watching the natural world being destroyed by our sense of success, meanwhile realizing that this idea of success is not as satisfactory as was once thought.
ReplyDeleteTsing describes the commodity chain of matsutake mushrooms as an interplay of many social and political spaces, translating the mushrooms from the original spot in the earth where it was conceived to the final resting place in the belly of a Japanese consumer. These different political and social spaces are defined by Tsing as “patches,” and these patches vary in functions, ideals and reasoning of handling these mushrooms. She explains the big picture in steps that take the following form – pickers to independent buyers, independent buyers to bulkers (small companies with inventory), bulkers to other bulkers and/or exporters, exporters to importers in the receiving country.
As explained in the previous paragraph, different lives are entangled within the accumulation and circulation of the mushrooms through the system of patches involved in the respected commodity chain. Each patch throughout the commodity chain acquires people from many different backgrounds and it is necessary for people of certain backgrounds and/or ethnicities to play in these roles in order for the commodity chain to be successful. This can have to do with the language barrier and ease of communication, special skills needed to complete tasks, and/or the acceptance of certain people/ethnicities by other key members of the specific patch.
Tsing explains the idea of “salvage,” which is one of the biggest limitations of a capitalist economy. This refers to the natural processes the capitalist economy relies on in order to fill all functions needed to survive, including that of child birth (for the production of labor) and the reproduction of natural resources as the quantity of raw materials are dwindling. This term also refers to the functions like these mushroom pickers and buyers within the communities in Oregon in the sense that they are not interested in and, in turn, do not build capital off of this system but continue to play a key role in the capital economy as a whole.
Precarity, examined by Tsing, is "life without the promise of stability" (2). She continues to describe the Soviet Union running to the woods to collect mushrooms when the Union collapsed. Tsing explains that when a world that was once controlled is now falling apart, mushrooms are a guide to uncontrollability. Ina world that is so constructed and controlled by the government, it is easy to get unhinged from government construct which is where we lose ourselves. "If we open ourselves to their fungal attractions, matsutake can catapult us into the curiosity that seems to me the first requirement of collaborative survival in precarious times" (2). The commodity chain of the matsutake mushrooms are kind of like an assembly line. They start at one point and end at another. First, the mushrooms are grown in their natural habitat in the forest where they thrive. Soon they are harvested by those who want to gift it to their loved ones or use it for the celebration of autumn. The demand for this mushroom has grown tremendously because of its social ideals and political views. These mushrooms go through many travel destinations, from place to place where they reach their final destination, in the hands of importers in the country receiving the mushrooms. The circulation of the mushrooms are between multiple functions of life. There are several types of backgrounds and social identities that have a part in the accumulation of the matsutake mushroom. Without these different backgrounds and societies, the mushroom commodity chain would not be as successful if at all. It takes multiple systematic processes in order to creat a chain of commodity in the matsutake mushroom.The study of the matsutake mushroom in the global market tells us that salvaging what we have is one of the most important limits in a capitalist economy. Capitalist economies are doing as much as they can in order to salvage what they have, whether it be their resources or any labor services. The qualities of resources are slowly becoming more scarce so capitalist economies must protect and use their resources wisely. The mushroom pickers though, do not want capitalism to control them. They still are involved in the economy capitalism, but do not work the same way. The mushroom pickers have chosen their limits in the global economy and have the possibilities to generate a sustainably economy.
ReplyDeleteTsing describes the creation of a set of supply chains that formed around Japan after their economy opened to the outside world. These supply chains connected people in the country of Japan with people outside of Japan. Tsing uses the example of Japan trading for Indonesian wood logs using loans and other assistance and trade agreements. The matsutake supply chain was different from other chains in that The United States were suppliers rather than chain directors.
ReplyDeleteBy studying this matsutake supply chain we gain an understanding of a different form of economy within The United States that does not have a beginning in The United States. Rather the history of this supply chain leaves Japan as the one heading the supply chain while citizens of the U.S. are supplying the product for Japanese businesses. Also, by studying this history, we can see a past with Japan as a leader in the supply industry during the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds that they slowly began to lose throughout the decades since.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that Tsing is defining precarity as living a 'life without stability', that is as we moved into the capitalistic model and progressed, we have also set the course for ruin in some areas as well. An example given in the book is seen when Tsing talks about a race to build a railroad, with the race destoring the enviroment around it to make more room for the railroad. In this way, Tsing is stating that we will tend to leave ruin behind as we progress. In this same way, this can be seen in our cities as well, as when we build more houses and buissness and such, we leave less room for nature.
Anna Tsing eloquently lays out a portrait of how nature and the economy's relationship, though not fully reliant on one another, weaves in and out and mimics each others' rise and fall through environmental and economic history. Tsing describes precarity as "the condition of being vulnerable to others." While vague, the idea surrounds the idea of how individuals have very little control over global progress, but global progress effects how humans survive, leaving "non-humans" stuck within the global progress. It seems Tsing uses the term "assemblages" as a way to connect how progress and ecology are similar, by the fact that it is open-ended and either it can thrive or literally be eaten away and left to be nothing as it once was at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteForaging for mushrooms was a market created by the global economy that opened up a venture for refugees, immigrants and others alike. When economic strife plagues the working man, just like the autumn aroma, the hint of prosperity drew them to the disturbed forests that were once booming with progress. Now that progress in the form of a fungi on the forest floor. Just like mushrooms are vulnerable to global capitalization, the workers are vulnerable to the mushroom economy withering away with overuse.
Tsing uses the history of the Japanese economy as a base for what is further discussed in sections 8,9,and 10. To understand the economic connection that is made between the United States and Japan through the matsutake trade, we first have to examine how the Japanese economy became intertwined with the America's. In 1871, Japan entered the Meiji-era. During this time the elite of Japan turned towards Western Conventions and established their own firms as domestic equivilants to foreign ones as a way to keep foreigners from controlling trade. Post WWI, there was an economic boom and the Japanese economy relied on banking and capital. Post WWII, the United States occupation of Japan would result in the Japanese economy changing forever and would result in chaning the economic environment of the world forever. This gave way to supply-chain capitalism becoming a presence around the world.
ReplyDeleteThe matsutake mushroom is unquie in the sense that within a capitalist market is starts as a gift and ends as a gift. In Japan, the better kinds of the mushroom are used to build relationships and are seen as extensions of the person that gifted it. There are mediators through out the supply chain that are giving the quality of the matsutake to their clients as a personal gift. The mushroom itself is very personal to those who pick them, the experience of picking them is of value to them. Once the mushrooms are sent to warehouses (Oregon), they become alienated and this is the part of process that they become nothing but a commodity. All that matters at this stage is the maturity and size of the mushroom because when sending mushrooms from Oregon to Japan, the main goal is to please the Japanese buyers to adhering to their standards.
The different lives entngeled in the acumulation and circulation of mushroom for instances is evidence in "the market space", thus, where selling of the mushroom take places in small towns. The author analysised the relations between the small town bosses and the pickers in this space, and how the private assets depend on common living spaces. More so, the bosses are able to buy local mushrooms on their own terms because they are entagled with the pickers. But they transport this commodity outside the small town and create more wealth on it. Even though the pickers knew the bosses were getting rich they were tied up in this "profitless" form of entanglement termed trust. Hence, on the whole the process of issusing forest contracts all in the name of saving the forest seems more of redirecting wealth to private entities as noted by the author in this chapter.
ReplyDeleteMany different lives are entangled in the matsutake trade. Immigrants, conservatives, veterans, etc. are all part of the cultivation of the mushroom in Oregon. All these people come together to be able to cultivate the mushrooms. There are many people that are involved in the small towns such as Open Ticket such as the pickers and buyers. These people share a special relationship is unique because it is personal relationship that exists in an all cash economy. The buyers, or middlemen, allow for the pickers in Oregon to become entagled in the global matsutake economy that is present. Considering that the mutsutake trade is a global phenomenon this entangles not just people in the cultivation in Oregon but people in Japan and other cultivation areas around the world all focusing on a single type of mushroom
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ReplyDeleteThe study of the matsutake mushroom can teach us much about the limits and unintendended possibilities of the capitalist economy. The matsutake mushroom itself may be a limit to the capitalist economy, as it is not those who take part in some industrial sector who collect and sells these mushrooms, but regular people who make their own hours, only to be dictated by season and location. Of an unintended possibility within the capitalist economy, this can be seen in those who collect and sell these valuable mushrooms. After all, the people who collect them have a great amount of freedom to their work, that they might not have under a normal tradional capilistic economy.
Chapters 18,19: In these sections, Tsing is focusing on the idea of woodland revitalization and human involvement wih the forests in in Yunnan. On page 262, she describes how the idea of revitalizing the woods is not the same as we would think of it in the West. We often think of leaving the woods alone as the way for plants to flourish, but these sections highlight how the neglect of the forest in yunnan cause the pines to die and the matsutake to disappear. The citizens groups involved in this process often learn from elderly farmers. Tsing also talks about in these sections the idea of the "privatization" of land through contracting to farmers. Interestingly, she describes privatization as "never complete", as an industry such as the mushroom trade requires team efforts and mutually shared spaces. She also describes the rural bosses as "replacements for social heroes" (274), which demonstrates the sorts of shifts that have occurred in the region in the post-socialist era.
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