Fieldnotes: Mycelial networks!
Updates on ideas, research, and tools in the field of environmental communication
Photo by Jannik Selz on Unsplash
What I’m listening to:
The audiobook Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures, narrated by the author Merlin Sheldrake. So far, the wonderful thing about this book is how Sheldrake describes the powerful role metaphor plays in helping us make sense of fungi and the way he transitions from the details of his biological research to wider philosophical ideas about nature.
Like this excerpt:
“A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things. The “you” of five years ago was made from different stuff than the “you” of today. Nature is an event that never stops. As William Bateson, who coined the word genetics, observed, “We commonly think of animals and plants as matter, but they are really systems through which matter is continually passing.”
What I’m reading:
“The COVID-19 crisis: Opportunities for sustainable and proximity tourism.”
I had never heard the term ‘proximity tourism’ before reading this article.
The author, Francesc Romagosa defines the term as ‘doing tourism while travelling close to home.’ Hmm, yeah, that’s pretty straightforward!
In making the case for ‘proximity tourism,’ Romagosa cites another recent article on conservation after Covid-19, that lays out why we need to rethink how we travel:
“even if the COVID-19 crisis ends relatively soon, we cannot afford to return to levels of travel experienced previously, particularly by the wealthiest segment of the world’s population. This is not only because of the social unrest overtourism provoked, but also because the industry’s environmental damages (including climate change as well as pollution and resource depletion) which were already beyond unsustainable.”
– Fletcher, Robert; Buscher, Bram; Massarella, Kate; Koot, Stasja (2020)
What I’m watching:
Leviathan. An ‘experimental ethnographic film’ about the fishing industry. I was intrigued about the film after reading a fascinating review of it in the journal of Visual Anthropology Review:
“Leviathan, an experimental ethnographic film by Castaing-Taylor and Paravel, is groundbreaking. By decoupling voice from any stable narrative perspective, it allows the viewer to be made over by a world beyond the human. It is, we argue, a form of dreaming—a modality of attention that can open us to the beings with whom we share this fragileplanet. As such,Leviathan gestures to a sort of ontological poetics and politics for the so-called Anthropocene.”
Eco-Tool(s) I’m using:
Story-based strategy tools. A favorite resource of mine for practical tips on using the science of effective storytelling in your environmental communication and campaigns. I really love their 2-page STORY-BASED STRATEGY 101 guide:)
See you Sunday!
Gavin