"It matters what ideas we use to think about other ideas" DonnaHaraway[1], "Continue with the problem" (2014) ---- In times where theescalation of war conflicts, the looting of common goods, the extremeflexibility of the market of work and the explanation by the currentgovernment of Argentina of measures that threaten basic freedoms(paradoxically in the name of freedom) pushes us to rethink not only thewords with which we name events and phenomena but also the way in whichour existences are involved in circulation through precarious spaces.The possibility of inhabiting capitalist ruins means understanding, onthe one hand, the terrible damage that this system causes to life onearth and, on the other, the importance of relationships betweenspecies[2]. It is not possible to achieve survival as a species bydestroying everything else.Precarious livelihoods allow us to not only think about the way we arerelated in a global world but also about the survival strategies we putinto play. Consider, for example, the impact of the recent document sentby President Milei[3]where the advance of the extractive model isclearly seen, which not only impacts socio-environmental health but alsothe conditions of the working class, education and health. , theproduction model, care policies, etc.[4]"The dream of alienation inspires a modification of the landscape inwhich only one isolated asset matters, while everything else becomesweeds or waste[...]When its unique asset can no longer be produced, theplace can be abandoned: it is He has cut down all the wood; all the oilhas been exhausted; or the soil no longer supports new crops. Then thesearch for assets elsewhere resumes. Thus, the simplification thatalienation entails generates ruined, abandoned spaces for the productionof assets"[5].This reference takes the name of "sacrifice zones": spaces where nothingcan grow, let alone multiply. The visits, for example, of the head ofthe United States Southern Command, Laura Richardson, are a clearexample of the need to expand extractive horizons to continue financingthe accumulation of property in handfuls of a few people, but at thesame time the importance of common goods as strategic resources[6].Current precariousness is a phenomenon that transcends borders and showscommon problems for the working class in an interconnected world.Tsing's text proposes to analyze the concept from a specific example:the collection and distribution of matsutake[7]. This fungus is born inOregon (USA) from a contaminated diversity: the plantation of pinuscontorta for exploitation as wood, destroying local biodiversity (a casesimilar to what happens in Argentina with pine plantations). native tothe south of the country, only without the fungus in question). In thedevastated landscape, matsutake appears as an economic asset thatrequires precarious labor to collect.Precarious subsistences, lacking any type of security that involveinterspecific relationships in the Anthropocene era[8]. We can think ofthe parallel of this story with extractive projects such as lithium inArgentina where the raw material is extracted violently and exportedwithout processing to the destination countries[9].Rethinking certain ideas from starting points that identify us as aclass means, among other issues, stressing the vain promises ofcapitalism (such as progress or transformation) and its manifest result:everything is considered a financial resource (an example of capital isthe ministry of recent creation "Human Capital").The challenge of the coming months will then be how to conceivecollaborative survival and there the fungi give us a perfect example intheir biologically situated role. In these territories wherepre-industrial modes of production still persist, it will then be amatter of stopping to look around us instead of continuing only to lookahead.[1]Haraway is a professor emeritus in the departments of history ofconsciousness and feminist studies at the University of California,Santa Cruz (UCSC). Throughout her long academic career she has writtenreference texts in fields as diverse as feminism, technoscience, sciencefiction, primatology and postcolonial studies. From all these points ofview she has questioned the values of dominant humanism in Westernculture and has studied the relationships between humans and non-humans,from cyborgs to companion animals. In her book "Continuing with theproblem. Generating kinship in the Chthulucene "she proposes to rethinkthe relationships of humans with the Earth and all the other speciesthat inhabit it. Available at:https://www.cccb.org/es/participantes/ficha/donna-haraway/228145[2]This text takes as reference the work of A. Lowenhaupt Tsing"Mushrooms at the end of the world. About the possibility of life in thecapitalist ruins" (2023). Edited by Caja Negra, Buenos Aires: Argentina.[3]Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines.December 27, 2023.[4]Regarding the impact on the conditions of workers, it is recommendedto read the article "The main labor reforms of Milei's mega DNU" in thisissue of Organization Obrera.[5]Op.cit.2. Pages 27 - 28.[6]Available at: https://youtu.be/u-Wi6SEd1vA?si=4qSkeq4Tzi-6cgpZ[7]Thicholoma matsutake is a mushroom that grows in devastatedlandscapes and is prized as a culinary good in Japan. Itscommercialization is a clear example of the asymmetries between itscollection (by undocumented migrants) and its commercialization at veryhigh prices in the destination country (each unit of matsutake is worth20 EUR at the time of writing this article).[8]The term involves diverse meanings: era in which human disturbancesurpasses other biological forces (humans as responsible for aplanetary-scale disaster). There are authors who propose that itschronology is linked to the advent of modern capitalism, where, throughcertain techniques, humans and other existences are conceived as mereresources.[9]For more information, we recommend reading the article "The colonialfantasy of lithium mining." Available at:https://agenciatierraviva.com.ar/la-fantasia-colonial-de-la-mineria-de-lithio/https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2024/01/08/espacios-precarios-y-la-posibilidad-de-supervivencia-en-tiempos-de-distopias/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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