Quiz 3.
In the book
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist
Ruins
, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing provides many traces of knowledge about
human behavior,
ability, and sensibility. The Pacific Northwest and Oregon exist within the global market as the
primary site for harvesting the most valuable mushroom in the world. This commodity supply
chain is also an example of human encounter and relationality to nature.
1. As a genre of writing and a research method, this ethnography provides a combination of ways
of gathering evidence. Which of the following are methods that the author uses?
a.
Poetry from the 8th, 16th, and 19th centuries that describes human’s sensibility
about the aroma of the Matsutake mushroom, its season, and/or its value.
b.
The act of walking or “going to the field” to harvest the mushroom
c.
Storytelling/oral history as a method for reflecting on family histories and other
Asian stories about citizenship, precarity, and work-life within the mushroom
harvesting industry
d.
Tracing stories /relocation from Thai Border, Laos, South / Central America and
returning soldier from Southeast Asia/Indo china war.
e.
The act of walking -foraging-searching for mushroom
f.
All of the above
2. The author traces this relationship between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival by
examining the need for continuing life (survival) within a multi-species landscape. Which of the
following options represents the diversity of people (humans) that the author has connected to
the economy of the Matsutake mushroom journey?
A.
US forestry department representatives, police, Japanese corporate representatives
(a former international/ a Chinese student in Japan, mushroom picker, forager,
buyer, and Oregon community.
B.
Hmong, Laos, Mien, Vietnamese, former Khmer Rouge members, Cambodian
refugees, some members of the US Veteran, Buyer, Mothers from Hongkong,
Japanese Chinese, immigrants from Latin and Central America.
C.
Indonesian Borneo forest
D.
A and B
E.
None of the above
3.The book also captured many journeys of displacement, relocation and search of freedom and
collaborations. The author argues about co-existence and tension.
a. For some foragers the forest is space making and marking territory as if
human to human
racialized encounters, but also a hope for new ways of collaboration with many backgrounds.
