Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
American anthropologist who examined friction, matsutake mushrooms, and multispecies worlds in globalization.
Most quoted
"To be a good ethnographer is to be a good listener, to be open to surprise, and to be willing to be changed by what you hear."
— from Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, 2005
"To live well in the ruins means to cultivate curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn from others, human and nonhuman."
— from The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, 2015
"The challenge is not to escape precarity, but to learn to live with it, and even to find forms of flourishing within it."
— from The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, 2015
All quotes by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (101)
The future is not predetermined; it is open, contingent, and full of surprises.
To be human is to be a knot in a vast web of relations.
The global is not a destination; it is a process, a constant becoming.
We need to cultivate an ethics of care, a responsibility for the well-being of all beings.
The ruins are not just a problem; they are also a resource, a source of inspiration for new ways of living.
To understand the world, we must attend to its textures, its sounds, its smells, its tastes.
The Anthropocene is a call to action, a demand for new forms of collective living.
The mushroom reminds us that life goes on, even in the most unlikely places.
We need to cultivate a sense of humility, recognizing our place within a larger ecological system.
The global is a space of encounter, a place where different histories and futures intersect.
Friction is the awkward, unequal, unstable aspects of interconnection across difference.
We are all caught up in the webs of globalization, but not all equally.
Mushrooms are the companions of disturbance; they thrive where others cannot.
Capitalism is not a single system but a patchwork of collaborations across difference.
Life on earth is more than human; we must learn to live with it.
The matsutake mushroom teaches us about resilience in ruined landscapes.
Global connections are never smooth; they are full of friction and surprise.
In the ruins of capitalism, new forms of life emerge.
Anthropology is about following the threads of connection in unexpected places.
We cannot separate human life from the more-than-human world.
Contemporaries of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (1952).