Feral Ecologies: Infrastructures and Modes of Intervention

In this podcast, anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Aarhus University, Denmark, meets Heather Anne Swanson, a fellow anthropologist at Aarhus University and collaborative partner for Sonia Levy’s film Creatures of the Lines (2021) previously presented on TBA21 on st_age. Tsing is the author of several books, including The Mushroom at the End of the World, as well as a co-editor of the digital project Feral Atlas together with Jennifer Deger, Alder Saxena Keleman, and FeiFei Zhou.  In the podcast, Tsing and Swanson discuss several of Tsing’s recent projects, while also describing the significance that these approaches had on Creatures of the Lines (2021). Along the way, this conversation covers wide-ranging topics, including Tsing’s notion of feral ecologies—i.e. those shaped by interactions with human infrastructures, but outside of the control of the humans who designed those infrastructures. The dialogue also features a special focus on oceanic and coastal contexts, including Tsing’s new work on mangroves in Southeast Asia and her idea of “fragmented porosities” as well as its conceptual links with Levy’s film on British canal worlds. Both cases highlight how colonial infrastructures are part and parcel of Anthropocene ecologies.