A new form of collaboration in cultural anthropology: Matsutake worlds

Abstract

Experiments in collaboration open new investigative possibilities for cultural anthropologists. In this report, we use our research on matsutake mushrooms to show the promise of collaborative experiments for ethnographers of scale making, global connection, and human–nonhuman relations. Anna Tsing introduces. Mogu Mogu (Timothy Choy and Shiho Satsuka) argue that the mushroomic figure of mycorrhizal life illuminates workings of capital and power, nature and culture. Lieba Faier examines contingency—through the effect of weather and bugs on matsutake production—as a form of self‐positioning that emerges from local understandings of connection. Michael Hathaway uses postcolonial science studies to examine the transnational production, flow, and transformation of scientific knowledge about matsutake. Miyako Inoue discusses the anthropological subject that emerges through the kind of collaboration envisioned and practiced by the Matsutake Worlds Research Group. [collaboration, postcolonial science studies, multisited ethnography, naturecultures, contingency, knowledge production]