The paper seeks to summarize chapter fifteen, which has a title of the Ruin. In this chapter, the writer’s main point of argument is about the destroyed forests. He is talking about how human activities have led to forests turning into ruins. He goes on to talk about the destruction of Southeast Asia by a boom in Japan in the 1960s. He quotes, “When I arrived in Oregon in the early 1960s, loggers cut trees to water’s edge, ‘cat skinners’ drove bulldozers through streambeds, and some of the largest timberland owners were indifferent to reforesting cutover land” (Tsing 210). The next chapter is titled Science as Translation. In this chapter, the writer’s main subject is to explain the muddled translation and formation of knowledge patches. He talks about research institutes and their relation to the government, such as the Japanese Matsutake, which is a research institute in the field of forestry science. In the following chapter, the writer is talking about the flying spores. He explains how his lecturer says spores travel in the earth’s atmosphere as they breed. He says, “For most microbial species, you can find them everywhere. Dispersal is not the barrier. It’s whether they are able to survive in those environments” (Tsing 234). These spores contain certain diseases or rather pests that sometimes spread diseases to plants. They are also taught the ability of spores to carry along matsuke. In the following chapter, the writer talks about the interlude and the dance. The dance here refers to the mushroom patterns on the floor of the forests. Pickers know it very well, and they easily pick the mushrooms just when they bump into the ground before they fully get out.
The problem in the research study is quite a number observed by the author. Like in the first chapter, the writer clearly speaks of the problems experienced by both the forests and the locals around those areas. The locals are infested with insects and diseases from the woodlands in the neighbouring forests. They are forced to migrate due to this disastrous infestation of forest insects. On the other hand, the forest faces challenges from human beings who keep on cutting them for charcoal burning and other wood uses (Tsing 231). In the chapter on research sciences, the writer clearly discusses the challenges faced by researchers whose work cannot have an effect past their borders. The other problem is the pests and diseases passed on by the flying pores, which sometimes cause forest destruction.
The writer ties the reading together with a nice flow of events in the whole context. He begins very well with the ruins in Southeast Asia, mentioning the causes and the problems facing the forest and its effect on the local villages. He then goes to the scientific research institutes where training is done for students on the factors affecting forests, different approaches to these problems and how they can be controlled. He elongates chapters in an appealing manner with a good connection through the passages.
Work Cited
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp 201-250.
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