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Paper short abstract:

More-than-human entanglements involving fungi can offer vital perspective on the way how different types of knowledges interact. I try to uncover different layers of knowledge that transgress discourses on fungi and open question how could they help us to tackle environmental insecurities today?

Paper long abstract:

More-than-human entanglements involving fungi have been a theme of important research projects in recent years. Ground-breaking Tsing´s book on Matsutake mushroom have offered fascinating analysis of global trade of this luxurious product where people and fungi create strategies of survival in uncertain late capitalist precarious conditions. However, in different cultural settings the fungi are a subject of diverse discourses ranging from popular knowledge of mushroom foragers to professional mycologists. All of them are culturally embedded and historically rooted in what have been called mycophobic and mycophilic cultures, ie. defined on affects relating to fungi. My opening questions here are how these discourses on fungi are related, how are these knowledges negotiated and what are the practices of entangling with fungi they entail? My data come from proclaimed highly mycophilic Czech culture and are based on ethnographic research with different actors engaged with fungi with emphasis on its historical roots. Exactly these cultural settings enable to analyse interaction between scientific and everyday knowledges on fungi that reflect environmental challenges and global uncertainties. I try to uncover different layers of knowledge that transgress varied discourses on fungi, including scientific mycology, “amateur” mycology, mushroom foragers´ accounts, popular culture representations etc. Furthermore, I will trace cultural and historical origins of these layers to better understand how they relate to each other and what kind of sensitivities they mobilize. Finally, my intention is to open the question how could these more-than-human entanglements and their historical embeddedness navigate us in addressing the environmental insecurities of today?