Michael Hathaway | Simon Fraser University (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Hathaway

CABI eBooks, Jun 29, 2023

Mountain Research and Development, 2014

What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today’s mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For... more What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today’s mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life.

The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds, from the Tibetan plateau to the mushrooms’ final destination in Japan. Many Tibetan and Yi people have dedicated their lives to picking and selling this mushroom—a delicacy that drives a multibillion-dollar global trade network and that still grows only in the wild, despite scientists’ intensive efforts to cultivate it in urban labs. But this is far from a simple story of humans exploiting a passive, edible commodity. Rather, the book reveals the complex, symbiotic ways that mushrooms, plants, humans, and other animals interact. It explores how the world looks to the mushrooms, as well as to the people who have grown rich harvesting them.

A surprise-filled journey into science and human culture, this exciting and provocative book shows how fungi shape our planet and our lives in strange, diverse, and often unimaginable ways.

This book challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global No... more This book challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such globalized formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between “global” and “local.” The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese experts and scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past twenty-five years. It reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in the People’s Republic of China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”

The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death. Edited by Genese Sodikoff, 2011

During the 1990s, some scholars and activists invented a new position, bridg- ing what used to be... more During the 1990s, some scholars and activists invented a new position, bridg- ing what used to be fairly separate realms of indigenous rights and environ- mentalism. They argued that biological diversity and cultural diversity were vitally important, threatened, and connected. Although the link between the protection of the environment and of the rights of indigenous peoples might now seem obvious, alliances between environmental and indigenous rights groups were new at that time, first gaining momentum during the contentious politics of the Amazon rain forest in the 1990s (Conklin and Graham 1995). In this frame, particular peoples and particular natures were both said to be threatened with extinction. In turn, such alliances have shifted the terrain for environmental and indigenous rights efforts around the world, fostering new activist groups, pushing environmentalists to foreground better relations to indigenous peoples, and prompting indigenous rights organizations to argue on environmentalist grounds.

Social Analysis, 2018

This article explores how attraction, a companion term to elu-siveness, reveals insights into mul... more This article explores how attraction, a companion term to elu-siveness, reveals insights into multispecies worlds by showing how different organisms such as the matsutake mushroom interpret the world and interact with each other, whether or not humans are involved. Building on scholarly interest in the 'animal turn' (explorations of the human-animal relationship), this article moves beyond human-centered scholarship by using, but also modifying, the concept of umwelt introduced by the Baltic German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. Employing a critical social scientific reading of the biological literature that analyzes its findings, as well as challenges its animal-centric models of agency and behavior, I argue that this perspective helps us better understand ourselves as humans in a world that is much more than human. When anthropologists consider the 'more-than-human', they typically examine other species in relationship to humans. In contrast to the other articles in this special issue that focus on the role of elusiveness, this article moves beyond a human center to explore the key companion term to elusiveness: attraction. The realm of attraction and elusiveness is based on different organisms' ability to detect and perceive others through their senses, and here I explore the sensorial worlds of less commonly considered species such as insects, plants, and fungi. In particular, I focus on the lives of mushrooms and how they participate in a wide range of sensorial engagements with a variety of organisms , including humans. Mushrooms such as the matsutake make themselves attractive, selectively engaging with others, and are themselves also attracted to other organisms.

This chapter is part of a book exploring how, in the 20th century, a wide-ranging number of state... more This chapter is part of a book exploring how, in the 20th century, a wide-ranging number of states around the world took on "nature" as a realm to understand, manage, and accommodate. This chapter explores how this took place in China, focusing on the PRC's early efforts to explore southern Yunnan province and establish national nature reserves. It argues that such efforts are always created in tension and in relationship to transnational efforts.

This chapter is part of a book exploring how we might approach history through a less anthropocen... more This chapter is part of a book exploring how we might approach history through a less anthropocentric lens. The piece builds on fieldwork with villagers in Southwest China who live among the nation's last herds of wild elephants, and takes seriously their notion of these elephants as historical actors.

I argue that one way to start rethinking subsistence is to “queer” our notions of it, which inclu... more I argue that one way to start rethinking subsistence is to “queer” our
notions of it, which includes understanding subsistence not as separate
from but as linked to a larger economy. The concept of “queering the
economy” comes from J.K. Gibson-Graham, the pen name of cultural
geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson.1 Briefly, Gibson-
Graham query assumptions about the total dominance of capitalism,
what they call “capitalocentrism.” As feminist economic geographers,
they explore the existence of realms of social life and work that go on
outside of – but of course, always in relationship to – capitalist logics,
from unpaid housework and volunteerism to other community-focused activities that sustain societies, arguing that these diverse forms of work
fall outside of capitalist relations of exchange. Inspired by Eve Sedgwick’s
scholarship, this is what they refer to as “queering the economy,” by
which they mean uncovering the many aspects of social worlds that
diverge from dominant and dominating expectations.2 To make another
analogy, Gibson-Graham say that we can argue that the United States is
a predominantly Christian nation, but this notion obscures a great
wealth of actually existing beliefs and religions. Likewise, the claim that
the United States is capitalist is generally true but fails to recognize a vast
wealth of activities that are not fully explained by capitalist rationales.
In part, they define “capitalism” in narrow and specific terms – as wage
labour, where owners profit from the surplus labour of workers – in
order to reveal an existing diverse economy. They also encourage others
to expand the diverse economy in ways that could increase social equity.

Here I explore the issue of non-human agency in the age of the Anthropocene. The notion that non-... more Here I explore the issue of non-human agency in the age of the Anthropocene. The notion that non-human animals have agency is just
one of an increasing number of challenges to a long-enduring Western
conceptual framework that views non-human animals and humans as intrinsically different. In this anthropocentric frame, non-humans are
regarded as ‘passive’ counterparts to ‘active’ human subjects, the latter
with conscious intent and agency and the former without. As a result,
non-human species are posited as the victims of human actions: domestic
animals are turned into living commodities, and wild species
suffer from human destruction of their habitat. A number of animal
studies scholars consider the concept of non-human agency in one of
two frames, by either lamenting the condition of animals as victims,
or celebrating their acts of ‘resistance’ against the human world. I was
given cause to examine the concept of non-human agency in these
terms during long-term anthropological fieldwork in Southwest China.
My family and I spent a year in a rural village where villagers live alongside
the country’s last remaining herds of wild elephants. During that
time my conversations with the villagers and observations of the human–
elephant entanglements in that area led me to a view of animal
agency that is agnostic about the question of conscious intent, but curious
about what might be called ‘distributed agency’ or ‘cumulative
agency’, which explores how accumulation of actions over time and by
many individuals has effects in the world. In this chapter I pursue a
sense of agency that is not predicated on unusual actions by specific individuals, but that recognises elephants as place-makers and historical
actors whose behaviours are in dynamic flux.

This article explores how global environmental organizations unintentionally fostered the notion ... more This article explores how global environmental organizations unintentionally fostered the notion of indigenous people and rights in a country that officially opposed these concepts. In the 1990s, Beijing declared itself a supporter of indigenous rights elsewhere, but asserted that, unlike the Americas and Australia, China had no indigenous people. Instead, China described itself as a land of " ethnic minority " groups, not indigenous groups. In some sense, the state's declaration appeared effective, as none of these ethnic minority groups launched significant grassroots efforts to align themselves with the international indigenous rights movement. At the same time, as international environmental groups increased in number and strength in 1990s China, their policies were undergoing significant transformations to more explicitly support indigenous people. This article examines how this challenging situation arose, and discusses the unintended consequences after a major environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), carried out a project using the language of indigeneity in China.

This paper explores the relationship between forms of environmental governance and a transnationa... more This paper explores the relationship between forms of environmental governance and a transnational commodity
chain for a wild mushroom that is picked in China and shipped to Japan. I argue that unlike some portrayals of environmental governance that largely assume a unified system working towards similar goals, governance comes from a number of sources and exhibits a range of forms, which at times overlap and contradict each other.

In particular, this paper reflects on notions of commodification that are often argued to be part of neoliberal environmental governance. I show that diverse forms of environmental governance are shaping the texture of commodity chains, but not always working towards the overall increase in commodification. For example, in the last decade, the matsutake economy in China has been strongly influenced by several forms of environmental governance, such as a large-scale logging ban, the declaration of the matsutake as an endangered species, and its scrutiny in Japan as a potential object of contamination. I suggest that each of these forms of governance shapes the conditions of possibility and inflects the dynamics of this chain in different ways.

Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the... more Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between 'global' and 'local.' The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past 25 years. Hathaway reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”

Multi-Sited Ethnography Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research Edited by Mark-Anthony Falzon, 2009

The idea of collaboration has much appeal, but some of us wondered if collaboration is always des... more The idea of collaboration has much appeal, but some of us wondered if collaboration is always desirable. Perhaps ethnographic echolocation is one of many new kinds of senses that can be cultivated through multi-sited, strong collaborations. The mushroom hid and prospered in cool mountain forests, where deer and squirrels followed its delicious scent. Satsuka offers examples of how translation between Japanese, North American, and Chinese projects for managing nature challenges the terms for studying each. According to Tomoya Akimichi, the workshop convener, the English commons and iriai differ for several reasons. Matsutake yama, or matsutake-growing landscape in Japan, can be translated as 'matsutake forest', thus lending commensurability with forests in Oregon and Yunnan. The politics of translation is striking in the translation of iriai, the practice of communal land use in Japan, as 'the commons.

CABI eBooks, Jun 29, 2023

Mountain Research and Development, 2014

What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today’s mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For... more What a Mushroom Lives For pushes today’s mushroom renaissance in compelling new directions. For centuries, Western science has promoted a human- and animal-centric framework of what counts as action, agency, movement, and behavior. But, as Michael Hathaway shows, the world-making capacities of mushrooms radically challenge this orthodoxy by revealing the lively dynamism of all forms of life.

The book tells the fascinating story of one particularly prized species, the matsutake, and the astonishing ways it is silently yet powerfully shaping worlds, from the Tibetan plateau to the mushrooms’ final destination in Japan. Many Tibetan and Yi people have dedicated their lives to picking and selling this mushroom—a delicacy that drives a multibillion-dollar global trade network and that still grows only in the wild, despite scientists’ intensive efforts to cultivate it in urban labs. But this is far from a simple story of humans exploiting a passive, edible commodity. Rather, the book reveals the complex, symbiotic ways that mushrooms, plants, humans, and other animals interact. It explores how the world looks to the mushrooms, as well as to the people who have grown rich harvesting them.

A surprise-filled journey into science and human culture, this exciting and provocative book shows how fungi shape our planet and our lives in strange, diverse, and often unimaginable ways.

This book challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global No... more This book challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such globalized formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between “global” and “local.” The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese experts and scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past twenty-five years. It reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in the People’s Republic of China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”

The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death. Edited by Genese Sodikoff, 2011

During the 1990s, some scholars and activists invented a new position, bridg- ing what used to be... more During the 1990s, some scholars and activists invented a new position, bridg- ing what used to be fairly separate realms of indigenous rights and environ- mentalism. They argued that biological diversity and cultural diversity were vitally important, threatened, and connected. Although the link between the protection of the environment and of the rights of indigenous peoples might now seem obvious, alliances between environmental and indigenous rights groups were new at that time, first gaining momentum during the contentious politics of the Amazon rain forest in the 1990s (Conklin and Graham 1995). In this frame, particular peoples and particular natures were both said to be threatened with extinction. In turn, such alliances have shifted the terrain for environmental and indigenous rights efforts around the world, fostering new activist groups, pushing environmentalists to foreground better relations to indigenous peoples, and prompting indigenous rights organizations to argue on environmentalist grounds.

Social Analysis, 2018

This article explores how attraction, a companion term to elu-siveness, reveals insights into mul... more This article explores how attraction, a companion term to elu-siveness, reveals insights into multispecies worlds by showing how different organisms such as the matsutake mushroom interpret the world and interact with each other, whether or not humans are involved. Building on scholarly interest in the 'animal turn' (explorations of the human-animal relationship), this article moves beyond human-centered scholarship by using, but also modifying, the concept of umwelt introduced by the Baltic German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. Employing a critical social scientific reading of the biological literature that analyzes its findings, as well as challenges its animal-centric models of agency and behavior, I argue that this perspective helps us better understand ourselves as humans in a world that is much more than human. When anthropologists consider the 'more-than-human', they typically examine other species in relationship to humans. In contrast to the other articles in this special issue that focus on the role of elusiveness, this article moves beyond a human center to explore the key companion term to elusiveness: attraction. The realm of attraction and elusiveness is based on different organisms' ability to detect and perceive others through their senses, and here I explore the sensorial worlds of less commonly considered species such as insects, plants, and fungi. In particular, I focus on the lives of mushrooms and how they participate in a wide range of sensorial engagements with a variety of organisms , including humans. Mushrooms such as the matsutake make themselves attractive, selectively engaging with others, and are themselves also attracted to other organisms.

This chapter is part of a book exploring how, in the 20th century, a wide-ranging number of state... more This chapter is part of a book exploring how, in the 20th century, a wide-ranging number of states around the world took on "nature" as a realm to understand, manage, and accommodate. This chapter explores how this took place in China, focusing on the PRC's early efforts to explore southern Yunnan province and establish national nature reserves. It argues that such efforts are always created in tension and in relationship to transnational efforts.

This chapter is part of a book exploring how we might approach history through a less anthropocen... more This chapter is part of a book exploring how we might approach history through a less anthropocentric lens. The piece builds on fieldwork with villagers in Southwest China who live among the nation's last herds of wild elephants, and takes seriously their notion of these elephants as historical actors.

I argue that one way to start rethinking subsistence is to “queer” our notions of it, which inclu... more I argue that one way to start rethinking subsistence is to “queer” our
notions of it, which includes understanding subsistence not as separate
from but as linked to a larger economy. The concept of “queering the
economy” comes from J.K. Gibson-Graham, the pen name of cultural
geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson.1 Briefly, Gibson-
Graham query assumptions about the total dominance of capitalism,
what they call “capitalocentrism.” As feminist economic geographers,
they explore the existence of realms of social life and work that go on
outside of – but of course, always in relationship to – capitalist logics,
from unpaid housework and volunteerism to other community-focused activities that sustain societies, arguing that these diverse forms of work
fall outside of capitalist relations of exchange. Inspired by Eve Sedgwick’s
scholarship, this is what they refer to as “queering the economy,” by
which they mean uncovering the many aspects of social worlds that
diverge from dominant and dominating expectations.2 To make another
analogy, Gibson-Graham say that we can argue that the United States is
a predominantly Christian nation, but this notion obscures a great
wealth of actually existing beliefs and religions. Likewise, the claim that
the United States is capitalist is generally true but fails to recognize a vast
wealth of activities that are not fully explained by capitalist rationales.
In part, they define “capitalism” in narrow and specific terms – as wage
labour, where owners profit from the surplus labour of workers – in
order to reveal an existing diverse economy. They also encourage others
to expand the diverse economy in ways that could increase social equity.

Here I explore the issue of non-human agency in the age of the Anthropocene. The notion that non-... more Here I explore the issue of non-human agency in the age of the Anthropocene. The notion that non-human animals have agency is just
one of an increasing number of challenges to a long-enduring Western
conceptual framework that views non-human animals and humans as intrinsically different. In this anthropocentric frame, non-humans are
regarded as ‘passive’ counterparts to ‘active’ human subjects, the latter
with conscious intent and agency and the former without. As a result,
non-human species are posited as the victims of human actions: domestic
animals are turned into living commodities, and wild species
suffer from human destruction of their habitat. A number of animal
studies scholars consider the concept of non-human agency in one of
two frames, by either lamenting the condition of animals as victims,
or celebrating their acts of ‘resistance’ against the human world. I was
given cause to examine the concept of non-human agency in these
terms during long-term anthropological fieldwork in Southwest China.
My family and I spent a year in a rural village where villagers live alongside
the country’s last remaining herds of wild elephants. During that
time my conversations with the villagers and observations of the human–
elephant entanglements in that area led me to a view of animal
agency that is agnostic about the question of conscious intent, but curious
about what might be called ‘distributed agency’ or ‘cumulative
agency’, which explores how accumulation of actions over time and by
many individuals has effects in the world. In this chapter I pursue a
sense of agency that is not predicated on unusual actions by specific individuals, but that recognises elephants as place-makers and historical
actors whose behaviours are in dynamic flux.

This article explores how global environmental organizations unintentionally fostered the notion ... more This article explores how global environmental organizations unintentionally fostered the notion of indigenous people and rights in a country that officially opposed these concepts. In the 1990s, Beijing declared itself a supporter of indigenous rights elsewhere, but asserted that, unlike the Americas and Australia, China had no indigenous people. Instead, China described itself as a land of " ethnic minority " groups, not indigenous groups. In some sense, the state's declaration appeared effective, as none of these ethnic minority groups launched significant grassroots efforts to align themselves with the international indigenous rights movement. At the same time, as international environmental groups increased in number and strength in 1990s China, their policies were undergoing significant transformations to more explicitly support indigenous people. This article examines how this challenging situation arose, and discusses the unintended consequences after a major environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), carried out a project using the language of indigeneity in China.

This paper explores the relationship between forms of environmental governance and a transnationa... more This paper explores the relationship between forms of environmental governance and a transnational commodity
chain for a wild mushroom that is picked in China and shipped to Japan. I argue that unlike some portrayals of environmental governance that largely assume a unified system working towards similar goals, governance comes from a number of sources and exhibits a range of forms, which at times overlap and contradict each other.

In particular, this paper reflects on notions of commodification that are often argued to be part of neoliberal environmental governance. I show that diverse forms of environmental governance are shaping the texture of commodity chains, but not always working towards the overall increase in commodification. For example, in the last decade, the matsutake economy in China has been strongly influenced by several forms of environmental governance, such as a large-scale logging ban, the declaration of the matsutake as an endangered species, and its scrutiny in Japan as a potential object of contamination. I suggest that each of these forms of governance shapes the conditions of possibility and inflects the dynamics of this chain in different ways.

Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the... more Environmental Winds challenges the notion that globalized social formations emerged solely in the Global North prior to impacting the Global South. Instead, such formations have been constituted, transformed, and propelled through diverse, site-specific social interactions that complicate and defy divisions between 'global' and 'local.' The book brings the reader into the lives of Chinese scientists, officials, villagers, and expatriate conservationists who were caught up in environmental trends over the past 25 years. Hathaway reveals how global environmentalism has been enacted and altered in China, often with unanticipated effects, such as the rise of indigenous rights, or the reconfiguration of human/animal relationships, fostering what rural villagers refer to as “the revenge of wild elephants.”

Multi-Sited Ethnography Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research Edited by Mark-Anthony Falzon, 2009

The idea of collaboration has much appeal, but some of us wondered if collaboration is always des... more The idea of collaboration has much appeal, but some of us wondered if collaboration is always desirable. Perhaps ethnographic echolocation is one of many new kinds of senses that can be cultivated through multi-sited, strong collaborations. The mushroom hid and prospered in cool mountain forests, where deer and squirrels followed its delicious scent. Satsuka offers examples of how translation between Japanese, North American, and Chinese projects for managing nature challenges the terms for studying each. According to Tomoya Akimichi, the workshop convener, the English commons and iriai differ for several reasons. Matsutake yama, or matsutake-growing landscape in Japan, can be translated as 'matsutake forest', thus lending commensurability with forests in Oregon and Yunnan. The politics of translation is striking in the translation of iriai, the practice of communal land use in Japan, as 'the commons.

New perspectives on two countries that are touchstones for contemporary debates over energy futur... more New perspectives on two countries that are touchstones for contemporary debates over energy futures. Michael Hathaway, author of Environmental Winds: Making the Global in Southwest China (University of California Press, 2013) and Brit Ross Winthereik co-creator of the Alien Energy project discuss power, environment and the turbulent politics of wind.

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2014

Journal of Ethnobiology, 2007

Lye Tuck-Po's recent book offers an engaged account of the Batek, as they negotiate the changing ... more Lye Tuck-Po's recent book offers an engaged account of the Batek, as they negotiate the changing natural, social and political landscape of Malaysia. Her innovative work makes an important contribution to a recent and welcome trend in ethnobiological research, what Eugene Hunn calls “ ...

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2006

Abstract Since the 1990s, a transnational network of activists and organizations has played a cri... more Abstract Since the 1990s, a transnational network of activists and organizations has played a critical role in new perspectives on rural development and land rights. The individuals and groups that constitute this network are linked by the issues of environmental conservation, ...