Leaving Gridworld

Provincializing Electricity by Émile St-Pierre (Osaka University) emil.stpierre@gmail.com October 30, 2020 . In the beginning, there was the steam machine. Or so starts one of the ways the Anthropocene story has been told. Much like the biblical Genesis, the Anthropocene discussion is inhabited by multiple versions, some starting with plantations, or with post-WWII U.S. petro-imperialism. … Read more

Making Law of/with Nonhumans

The Ganges River is a Legal Person by Moe Nakazora (Hiroshima University) nakazora@hiroshima-u.ac.jp    On March 20, 2017, the High Court of Uttarkahand, a state in northwestern India, mandated that the rivers Ganges and Yamuna, as well as all water bodies, are “living entities,” that is, “legal persons.” What this declaration implies is that these … Read more

Across the Worlds of Insects and Humans

A Multispecies Reading of Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms” by Qieyi Liu (University of Toronto) qieyi.liu@mail.utoronto.ca February 21, 2020 . How we narrate our past matters, since the way we perceive history shapes how we understand the present and project a livable future. Yet who are the “we” in history, and how to interpret the power-ridden … Read more

Attunements to Fog

Capture as an Idiom for More-than-Human Entanglements

by Chakad Ojani, PhD student (University of Manchester)

chakad.ojani@gmail.com
January 30, 2020

We have barely finished installing Sergio’s fog catcher before he exclaims: “Look how the water is trickling down!” I fix my gaze on the net above me, which the seven of us have set up perpendicular to the direction of the wind. Indeed, water has already begun running down along the thin plastic threads. “Look, look…” Sergio insists, again and again, while following the water droplets with his index finger as they accumulate and grow big enough to be pulled down by gravity, quickly filling the gutter that runs horizontally below it. Someone laughs in excitement. I have long been aware about the possibility to capture and concentrate the tiny water droplets we are currently inhaling up here in the hills. Even so, I’m surprised by a sense of allure that this sight instantaneously evokes in me. There’s something surreal about the whole setting. I shake off my paralysis to step back and have a look around, squinting. As far as I can tell, there’s only mist, accompanied by the aeolian sound of the wind, and occasional truck honks breaking through the thick blanket of fog covering the city below us. Water appears out of nowhere, literally conjured out of thin air. “We’ve found the water tap of the loma,” Sergio continues, with an ever-widening grin on his face, “the lomas do have water!” 1

Figure 1: Sergio surveying the water captured by one of his Standard Fog Collectors (photo by the author)

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Aesthetics of more-than-human worlds in the Art of Sonia Levy

Multispecies Entanglements and Implications for Ecology by Line Marie Thorsen (Aarhus University) lm.thorsen@gmail.com April 12, 2019 – Whether it is the nightly activities of urban foxes (Vulpine Domesticity, 2010-2013), a humpback whale telling the story of how it moves about (I Roam, 2015), or wolves attending to their ‘crystal palace’ (Pole, 2008), Sonia Levy’s artistic … Read more

On Eating and Killing: Multispecies Entanglements and Implications for Ecology

by Kelly Linton (The University of Western Ontario) kabrams4@uwo.ca  January 15, 2019 It was a late morning in early October. The sun shone brightly and the air was crisp. The kind of autumn day that in southern Ontario, Canada brings to mind chunky knit sweaters and pumpkin spice lattés. The trees had turned and the … Read more

Fostering a More-than-human World View

by Paul Hansen (Hokkaido University)hansenanthro@gmail.com September 17, 2018 Growing up a farm boy near Canada’s Rocky Mountains, I was surrounded by, enmeshed in, what I thought of as a world of non-human friends and foes (dogs, cats, and cows; coyotes, bees and bears; rifles, tractors and thistles). I escaped the mundanity of farm life through … Read more

Steps to an Ecology of Spirits

Comparing Feelings of More-than-Human, Immaterial Meshworks? by Andrea De Antoni (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto) deantoni@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp June 20, 2018 “So, do you believe in spirits?” I have been asked this question countless times, by my research partners in the field, but also by students, scholars at conferences, or even during random conversations in bars, regardless of my … Read more

The Tao of Multispecies Ethnography

by Scott Simon, Ph.D. (Professor, School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, U Ottawa, Canada and Visiting Scholar, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan) ssimon@uottawa.ca July 23, 2018 It has been eight years since “multispecies ethnography” made its grand splash into anthropology at the New Orleans meeting of the American Anthropology Association and simultaneous special issue … Read more

Human-Microbe Entanglements

Food Allergies in Japan and the UK by Emma Cook (Hokkaido University) cook@imc.hokudai.ac.jp July 4, 2018 In February 2014, as I was anticipating the start of hay fever season in Japan, I happened to turn the TV channel to a program that mentioned a particular brand of yoghurt that is said to mitigate hay fever … Read more