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- Convenors:
-
Anatolijs Venovcevs
(University of Oulu Svalbard Museum)
Pauliina Rautio
Emily O'Gorman (Macquarie University)
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- Chair:
-
Anna Krzywoszynska
(Oulu University)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Human and More than Human (and Microbial)
- Location:
- Linnanmaa Campus, Lo130
- Sessions:
- Monday 19 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The purpose of this session is to ask if we can do research and write history otherwise by including previously ignored, recalcitrant, or invisible more-than-human others such as insects, rodents, bacteria, and fungi that have long been neglected and stigmatized in more-than-human research.
Long Abstract:
While some human companion species such as dogs, cows, and silkworms have been celebrated for their positive and creative impact on human history other non-human beings with whom we have shared our homes have not been so fortunate. A certain subset of our companion species such as insects, rodents, bacteria, and fungi have long been neglected and stigmatized as bearers of pathogens, plague, and decay that has often been framed against traditional historicist tropes such as progress and modernity. The purpose of this session is to ask if we can do research and thereby write history otherwise? We call upon scholars from history and allied disciplines such as education, archaeology, geography, anthropology, and literature who work with the symbiotic and co-creative aspects of historically stigmatized non-human others. Rather than seeing these non-humans in a purely negative light, this section seeks to write alternative narratives by exploring what it is like to productively work in cooperation with such recalcitrant or invisible beings to generate knowledge and address historical misconceptions and omissions. In so doing, we seek to rethinking human (hi)stories both methodologically, by considering innovations that may help us connect to temporalities, spatialities, and scales that separate us from invisible or undesirable others, and contextually, by reinterpreting human history-making through this lens in order to generate a discussion on what it would truly mean to transform history beyond history.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 19 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Urban allotment gardens are multispecies spaces and sites of more-than-human conflicts. The following study, a multispecies ethnography of conflict negotiation and resolution, offers a way of inclusion of awkward others.
Paper long abstract:
Though designed to promote human self-sufficiency and health, urban allotment gardens are also home to a multitude of other beings, including plants, bacteria, fungi, insects, birds, and mammals. They are, by necessity, multispecies spaces where the gardeners become entangled with the nonhuman other and where more-than-human interactions and conflicts play out every day. My research focuses on the negotiations between the humans and the nonhumans regarding the use of garden space and time. These negotiations may take form of putting up barriers—and breaking them, or placing fake nests—and using them as food source. Drawing from my studies in two urban allotment gardens in the Finnish Capital Region, I propose a multispecies ethnography combining in-depth interviews with human participants and ecological observations of nonhuman participants using trail cameras. This method highlights the agency and needs of all participants in the negotiations—and in conflict resolution. Examples from my data show the active role of hares, magpies, rats and other awkward others in the allotment gardens and offer a way of including them in our research and our social worlds.
Paper short abstract:
What does it mean to write forest history when much literature is tree-centred? This paper proposes a more-than-tree approach to forest stories, accentuating neglected and stigmatised beings that are just as much interwoven in those histories. This diversifies ideas on temporality and entanglement.
Paper long abstract:
The forestry archives of Victoria, Australia, contain extensive reports calculating the value of tree stands and species. Likewise, forest histories can often focus on those trees reconceptualised as ‘resource’.
What of other beings that make up the forest? What does it mean to write ‘forest’ history when much literature is tree-centred? This paper proposes a more-than-tree approach to forest stories, accentuating the neglected and stigmatised beings that are just as much interwoven in those histories.
Where can we find traces of historical more-than-tree beings? Forestry archives document tree disease and decay, illuminating a backdrop of insects, fungi, and microbes. Forest immersion enables physical encounter with otherwise-invisible beings, animating reflections on how past interactions have transformed the present landscape. ‘Natural’ archives, such as paleoecology, can divulge historical more-than-tree assemblages. Engagement with relevant Indigenous cultures, knowledges, and creation stories further enriches and emplaces the emerging stories. Bryophytes, ferns, orchids, and lichens, among others, come into view as dynamic forest actors.
How can more-than-tree beings transform how we understand forests and write their histories? A more-than-tree approach centres curiosity and humility. It encourages being counterintuitively drawn by areas that do not grab one’s attention, and relearning stigmatised narratives as guided by the neglected beings themselves. This cooperation fosters more diverse comprehensions of temporalities, dynamism, and entanglement beyond the well-analysed tree perspective. It queries what forest histories would look like if they foregrounded the invisible being’s life. Overall, this approach can aid transitions toward reciprocal socio-ecological relations with present forests and landscapes more broadly.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing from ethnographic research on the Eucalyptus in Sardinia (Italy) from a multispecies perspective, the paper reflects on what kind of methodology and ethnographic material emerged by investigating an unwanted plant.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing from ethnographic research as a part of a film project about Eucalyptus in Sardinia (Italy), the contribution shows what kinds of stories of eco-colonialism and non-human dwelling can we tell by interviewing a plant.
The first specimens of Eucalyptus were collected in 1770. About a Century later, Eucalyptus represented a strategic species in connection with the reclaiming of wetlands, mine depletion, and the development of railway infrastructures. Nowadays, the presence of the Eucalyptus often relates to environmental conflicts as a key plant in the new economy of energetic transition (Meloni 2021). Stories of environmental justice, territorial depletion, human and non-human displacement, and biodiversity and land rights ‘losses’ characterize the history of the Gum tree’s presence in non-native lands (Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1985; Badalamenti et al. 2018).
Together with two filmmakers, we overturned the camera’s eye in an attempt to take on the plant’s perspective. Following the root of the Eucalyptus led us to stories of love and care for the plant previously neglected. These stories appear to shed light and offer new contributions to the history of human-plant relationships.
Conceptually moving within multispecies ethnography and the emergent field of Critical Plant Studies (Stobbe 2019), the paper shows the stories emerging by following the Eucalyptus presence far from their native land and reflects on what can be the methodological strategies to achieve an inquiry attuned to a plant story? Finally, the contribution questions what the story of a neglected plant tells us about past and future human/non-human modes of co-inhabits.
Paper short abstract:
While most histories of modern bacteriology focus on the discovery of bacteria in the context of understanding infectious disease, this paper will focus on early research on the therapeutic qualities of bacteria and the ontologies and epistemologies surrounding this research.
Paper long abstract:
While most histories of modern bacteriology focus on the discovery of bacteria in the context of understanding infectious disease, this paper will focus on early research on the therapeutic qualities of bacteria and the ontologies and epistemologies surrounding this research, using this example to reflect on the history of modern biomedicine.
Paper short abstract:
By diving into the complicated biological and social histories of Rhododendron ponticum, and building on the concepts of new ecologies, heritage management, and care, this paper demonstrates that there may just be a justified place for these plants as a part of Northwest Wales' heritage landscapes.
Paper long abstract:
For years, volunteers in the small Welsh town of Blaenau Ffestiniog have waged war against an advancing front of invaders. Despite their Herculean efforts using chainsaws, woodchippers, and herbicides, the Rhododendron ponticum which blankets the derelict quarries and tips has decidedly won the upper hand. Decades of neglect allowed the hardy evergreen bush to spread out from the Victorian estate gardens in which they were planted, eventually finding a perfect niche in what the slate industry left behind. Now, as Northwest Wales has received UNESCO World Heritage designation and attempts to revitalize its economy through tourism, invasive "alien" species are seen not only as ecological menaces but also economic ones, causing damage to heritage assets, rendering the landscape illegible, and detracting from a very carefully curated industrial aesthetic. The narrative is that the rhododendron simply doesn’t belong in these industrial heritage landscapes — but is there a more affirmative alternative? By diving into the complicated biological and social histories of Rhododendron ponticum, and building on the concepts of new ecologies, heritage management, and care, it becomes apparent that there may, indeed, be a justified place for these plants as a part of heritage landscapes.
Paper short abstract:
This paper tackles the long stigmatization of fungi as enemies of heritage. By drawing on recent WWII ruins it highlights how fungi can be reframed as producers of positive futures by decomposing dark pasts and generating multi-species ecologies.
Paper long abstract:
In the Bible, Leviticus 14:33-57, God described mould as a “leprosy” of the house and prescribes detailed instructions for its cleansing. Thus, in what might be the oldest description and treatment method of fungal decay in the world, fungi are framed as the enemy of humans, society, and their built environment. While it is true that certain species of fungi have threatened and continue to threaten human health, objects, buildings, and desirable species humans rely on, fungi are also ubiquitous and omnipresent companion species in human environments. Beyond enabling desirable products for human consumption like beer, bread, and cheese, fungi also play a more subversive role in digesting the human past, literally turning it to other matter. The purpose of this paper is to consider if we can study fungi differently, specifically in the disciplines preoccupied with forestalling and preventing fungal decomposition – archaeology and heritage studies. By drawing on fieldwork on fungal ecologies at German WWII ruins from Sør-Varanger municipality in northeastern Norway, the paper will explore what unique more-than-human fungal ecologies are enabled by the human past and how fungi draw in various actors while transforming a dark, difficult, and heavy heritage. Ultimately, the paper aims to challenge the assumptions dominating heritage management and wider society that sees fungi primarily in a negative light. Instead, it will show that accepting some of the “leprosy” in houses could enable positive future outcomes.
Paper short abstract:
Mushrooms could save our planet in the Anthropocene. This paper, by an economic anthropologist working on a Swiss mushroom farm, explores their economic and social dynamics, presenting a novel research approach.
Paper long abstract:
Mushrooms have the potential to play a significant role in saving our planet, a notion that is boldly asserted. In the era of the Anthropocene, our planet faces the looming threat of extinction, and fungi experts like the renowned mycologist Paul Stamets have gained increasing recognition for their belief in mushrooms as saviors. However, our understanding of the social and economic dynamics in which fungi thrive and coexist remains limited. Frequently situated within capitalist contexts, it is crucial to understand the human effort invested in nurturing and cultivating fungi, with the ultimate goal of achieving greater sales profitability.
This paper brings together the experiences and reflections of an economic anthropologist who is presently employed as a harvest helper at a mushroom farm in Switzerland. The paper aims to make three primary contributions: Firstly, from an empirical perspective, it demonstrates how and why fungi are valued and cultivated in Switzerland, a country not typically associated with mushroom production. This provides insights into the economic aspects and scales of the fungal industry. Secondly, from a methodological standpoint, the paper embraces the concept of 'mushrooms as method' by conducting research with mushrooms rather than merely about them. Thirdly, on a theoretical level, the paper bridges discussions surrounding fungi and female care by expanding the concept of care to encompass more-than-human entities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers the historical marginalisation of lichens before underscoring the significance of lichenness today. Poetry provides a lens for reading lichens culturally, leading us beyond the pitfalls of an individuated subjectivity toward an understanding of life as relational and ramifying.
Paper long abstract:
Lichens are among the planet’s oldest, slowest-growing, and most neglected life forms in the sciences and humanities. While animals and plants have become increasing subjects of concern in the Environmental Humanities, little focus has been placed on lichens—not only as ecological agents but as biocultural complexities. This paper will consider the intricate life-worlds of lichens as mediated in contemporary poetry. I will begin by attempting to think-with lichens at the micro-scale or what lichenologists call “the lichen lifestyle.” I will then reflect on some key moments in the historical marginalisation of lichens before underscoring the significance of lichenness today. In this regard, poetry provides a lens for reading lichens culturally. Jane Hirshfield’s “For the Lobaria...” considers the lichen lifestyle as a “marriage of fungi and algae” yet questions the broader disregard of lichens. Adopting the perspective of the lichen, Arthur Sze’s “Lichen Song” similarly confronts the neglect of these ubiquitous and inimitable organisms with which people share their everyday domestic worlds. Like the poems by Hirshfield and Sze, Forrest Gander’s “Twice Alive” gives prominence to the more-than-human wisdom of lichens as sources of inspiration for learning to live more symbiotically on—and with—the Earth. I conclude by suggesting that lichen life leads us beyond the pitfalls of an individuated subjectivity toward an understanding of life as relational and ramifying. A metamorphosis of consciousness—precipitating a revitalized politics—under the influence of lichenness is a compelling task on a planet ever more devitalised by the withering of wonder.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores human-microbe relationships, specifically the tensions between them. Drawing on ‘controlled equivocation’, it proposes a methodology for addressing these tensions, acknowledging the fundamental differences between humans and microbes and opening new avenues for collaboration.
Paper long abstract:
Since the appearance of germs theory, human-microbe relationships in Western countries have been characterised by a war-like eradication approach, associating microbes with disease. However, researchers across disciplines are becoming more and more aware of the interdependence of human and microbial worlds, adopting a more ‘probiotic’ attitude towards microbes and exploring the potential of engaging with them in research (Bradshaw, 2022; Greenhough, 2012). This does not go without problems, as 'collaborating’ with microbes is not easy or straightforward: invisible and unruly, these microscopic beings exist in a completely different scale than humans and other ‘big-like-us’ animals, living, dying, and evolving at a faster pace than our ability to engage with them. Furthermore, microbial entities are an essential part of life processes, but they can also ruin harvests, make us sick and even kill us. Addressing these tensions is crucial for successfully pursue research with microbes.
In this paper, I explore ways in which the tensions between humans and microbes could be negotiated, understanding how we can relate in our differences. For this, I draw on Viveiros de Castro’s notion of perspectivism, adapting his method of ‘controlled equivocation’ to nonhuman encounters (2004). This means asking questions such as: what does it mean for us (humans) to consider the perspective of microbes when doing research? What do we understand as ‘collaborating’ with microbes and why do we consider it collaboration? And, in what ways can developing this collaboration be mutually beneficial for living-with microbes in a post-antimicrobial world?
Paper short abstract:
We consider the oft-neglected transcorporeality of microbial life and iron ore via ancient stromatolites, layered rock structures co-created through metabolic processes of microorganisms. We draw attention to the microbial-mineral archive as a site for new materialist methodological interventions.
Paper long abstract:
Iron ore, a key ingredient in steel production and the most mined metal on Earth, has long been ontologically relegated to the realm of inanimate objects, belying the lively microbial foundation of iron ore’s formation. This paper takes as its starting point the often neglected transcorporeality of microbial life and iron ore demonstrated through an environmental history of ancient stromatolites. These layered rock structures, co-created through metabolic processes of ancient photosynthetic microorganisms, such as cyanobacteria, represent the earliest forms of life on Earth for which there is fossil evidence, dating back 3.5 billion years. This more-than-human creative collaboration illustrates the limits of the life/non-life binary, drawing attention to the deeply entwined microbial-mineral archive as a key site for research tracing temporalities from the deep geologic to the contemporary and exploring spatialities from the micro to the macro.
We consider the Hammersly Range of Western Australia’s Pilbara Craton as archive. The Hammersly, a mountainous formation dating to the Archaeon Eon four billion years ago, is home to the thickest and most extensive banded iron formations in the world, containing nearly 80% of all identified iron ore in Australia. Yet, simultaneously, large-scale extraction of iron ore by mega-mining companies Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue to meet global construction and engineering demands and the ‘green’ energy transition is threatening this earth archive, destroying mineral-microbial memory strata, and imposing cultural and elemental amnesia. Employing exploratory methods derived from new materialism we aim to recuperate the microbial-mineral archive.