Disturbances Rooted Within Our Landscapes 

By Mara Scally, Marina Pope, Heidi Sellers, and Nova Curtis.

Most quarters, a group of students at WWU gathers to discuss a recent book or set of podcasts about environmental justice. This post reflects our discussion of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins in Winter 2021. 

What do you consider a disturbance? Often the most common interpretation would be the disruption of peace. It is thought of as something that is negative and harmful typically. Even the word “disturbance” carries negative connotation and it is these assumptions that we have that can often hinder our own experience and understanding. In her book, The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing discusses disturbance in terms of ecological landscapes, particularly where pine forests and Matsutake mushrooms work together to make life possible. She advocates for a broader understanding that recognizes the livability and possibility hidden in such places, often obscured by perceptions trained to focus narrowly on idealized stable ecological conditions or human pursuits of progress. Instead she invites us to view landscapes as more than a stage for human players, but alive themselves with their own stories and ways of being. We don’t write that script, no matter how hard we might try. In our reading group this week we discussed this idea of disturbance in active landscapes.   

Growth of plants after a major fire. (Rudman, 2013). 

While we perceive disturbances differently, Tsing defines a disturbance as “a change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem” (Tsing, 2015, p. 160). Note how there is no connotation that a disturbance is a positive, or negative thing. Rather, Tsing frames disturbances as something that happens in the middle of things, and that there is no harmonious state of being before a disturbance. When one begins to view landscapes as active, and as constantly changing, disturbances may appear more natural.  During class discussion, we all noticed that we held negative views of disturbances on the landscape. Just like an ecosystem, we all hold different thresholds for what we personally consider a disturbance to our lives. While disturbances can renew or destroy local ecologies, it plays a unique role in the life of  pine trees and the matsutake mushroom. Matsutake mushrooms only fruit in places that have undergone significant disturbance- like after a fire or a massive clear cut. Pinecones will often not release their seedlings until a fire comes through. Then, the pines and matsutake form a reciprocal relationship where they help provide nutrients to each other that would otherwise be difficult to attain on their own. In discussion groups several people said the success of the matsutake in disturbed landscapes helped shift their perspective on disturbances overall. 

If we can begin to see landscapes as active, with multiple protagonists, we can also learn to reimagine our understanding of disturbance. No longer are we tied to ideas of climax states and historical baselines that view disturbance as synonymous with destruction. When we embrace landscapes as active and in a state of perpetual flux we can begin to see disturbance as more than just ruin, but as also an opening and opportunity for change. Through what Tsing refers to as the art of noticing we can begin to recognize the connections that make life generating and diversifying change possible. 

Works Cited 

Tsing, A.L. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 

Rudman, Tim (Photographer). (2013, January 26). Buttongrass regrowth [digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/tindo2/8428678409/in/photostream/