Ep. 155: What a Mushroom Lives For - Matsutake & the Worlds They Make (feat. Dr. Michael J. Hathaway)

Today on Mushroom Hour we are graced by the presence of Dr. Michael J. Hathaway - Professor of Anthropology at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Associate Member of the School for International Studies, and the Director of SFU's David Lam Centre for Asian Studies. He is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and author of What a Mushroom Lives For (2022) and Environmental Winds (2013). Hathaway is a cultural anthropologist with two central interests. First, he is deeply interested in China’s place in the modern world, looking at how little-known dynamics there have created world-spanning effects in surprising realms such as feminism, environmentalism, and Indigenous rights. His aim is to disrupt the typical assumptions that globalization emerges solely from the West. Second, Hathaway is doing what he can to foster a transformation in scientific understandings based on colonial assumptions of the natural world. For a quarter-century, Hathaway has lived in, worked, and traveled in China and increasingly in Japan, where he has explored the entangled and emerging worlds of transnational environmentalism and Indigenous rights. More recently, Hathaway has been exploring hidden histories of Indigenous-led activism across the Pacific Rim and how they have shaped the contemporary world. Today we’re going to dive into his newest book, “What a Mushroom Lives For”.   

TOPICS COVERED:   Environmentalism and Indigenous Rights in China   The Mushroom at the End of the World   Matsutake World Research Group   New Relationships with Biology    Human Exceptionalism   World Making   Thinking Like a Mushroom   Umwelt   Matsutake’s Economic Ecosystem   The Yi People & Their Fungal Economy   Entanglements of Yaks, Mushrooms, Barley, Trees and Public Policy   How Matsutake Continually Shapes Cultures and Economies into the Future    Efforts to Cultivate Matsutake   Can Shifting Ecological Worldviews Shape the Future?   EPISODE RESOURCES:    Michael J. Hathaway Website: https://www.michaeljhathaway.net/   "What a Mushroom Lives For" (book): https://www.amazon.com/What-Mushroom-Lives-Matsutake-Worlds/dp/0691225885Matsutake Worlds Research Group: https://people.ucsc.edu/~atsing/migrated/matsutake/    "The Mushroom at the End of the World" (book): https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-End-World-Possibility-Capitalist/dp/0691162751   Jakob von Uexküll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Johann_von_Uexk%C3%BCll   The Yi People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_people   Schizophyllum commune (AKA Splitgill Mushroom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophyllum_commune