Final notes on “Mushroom at the End of the World” by Anna Tsing and meanderings on atomisation ~ privatisation in university.
“The edges of alientation is the latent commons.” Latent commons are not exclusively human homelands. They are mutualistic entanglements. Neither can they redeem us, they are the ‘here and now’. “The ruin glares… but luckily there is still companionship. We can still catch the scent of the latent commons…” Tsing again returns to the basics of ecology, those principles of interdependence and entanglement, with new language. She teaches unlearning of the popular ecology’s utopianism by making it clear that we live in the ‘here and now’, that the ruin is present. With this perspective we can also begin to notice the vibrancy of entangled life in its complexity. Nature is not a far away painting, but ever present.
Capitalism as translation: lifeworlds ~ lively production (local, cultural) ~ total commodification (alienation , disembedded from local connections) + centralized profit ~ commodity (connected to new lifeworlds, memories)
A commodity is only fully alienated for a temporary amount of time as it passes between lifeworlds.
Alienation is being “disembedded from local connections.” Tsing continues to discuss scholarship and it’s commodification, meaning we can bring this conceptual framework of alienation to our university experience.
The collaborative work is privatised: atomised. Scholarship transforms to an invididual process of personal timelines, projects, assessment critera and specialisation. Collective knowledge production (the latent commons) continues, being a primary goal of academia, but it’s process becomes slower and unceremonious. Lifeworlds are seperated and mediated by bureaucratic communication and administration. Connection is sparse as individuals less and less relate to one another’s practices and specialisations. Course work is independently lead. Humans scuttle off after class to return to a piling tower of virtual labour. As lifeworlds (humans) lose connection due to bureaucratic excess, unionising and solidarity become more difficult. Solidarity requires listening and understanding, qualities that vapourise in the age of uploading (virtualisation). Therefore bureaucratic excess and virtualisation become a tool of university management to build power.
The new radical act is connection and intimacy. A radical act in our university could look like collaboration outside of the curriculum. Physical interactions and communication can provide understanding across fire lines. Connection is radical because it arrives us to intimacy, which soothes the nervous system and slows down production. Connection does not mean we will necessarily transform the accelerating privatisation of our universities, but it means we could subvert this space of alienation for our own needs and benefit. Power dissipates when it loses our attention.