What ecological conditions and relations, historical forces, aspirations, hopes, dreams or visions attract or propel them (and other beings) to, and constitute, Open Ticket?

Assignment Question

Untangling the Assemblage (reading through chapter 6) (About 2 pages or so total will work! Make sure to answer each question and subquestion) In The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anthropologist Anna Tsing asks us to think about entities, places, or things as assemblages—“open ended entanglement(s) of ways of being”. “To learn about an assemblage”, Tsing proposes, “one must untangle its knots.” This weekly question has two parts. Part 1: First, untangle the assemblage of Open Ticket, Oregon—Tsing’s pseudonym for her “composite field site”, of matsutake commerce (picking, buying, selling). What is Open Ticket? Who picks, sells, and buys there? Why? What are their histories? What ecological conditions and relations, historical forces, aspirations, hopes, dreams or visions attract or propel them (and other beings) to, and constitute, Open Ticket? Be both thorough and precise.

Describe and untangle as much as you can in no more than 1-2 pages double spaced. Part 2: In no more than ½-1 page double spaced What did you think about the process of trying to understand a “thing” (in this case matsutake commerce in Open Ticket) in terms of an assemblage? Is this different than how you normally think about “things” (events, places, people)? Why do you think Tsing asks us to think about “things” as assemblages?

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