A-Infos (en) Argentina, FORA, Organizacion-Obrera #101: ANALYSIS, PRECARIOUS SPACES AND THE POSSIBILITY OF SURVIVAL IN TIMES OF DYSTOPIAS - URSULA (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

"It matters what ideas we use to think about other ideas" Donna 
Haraway[1], "Continue with the problem" (2014) ---- In times where the 
escalation of war conflicts, the looting of common goods, the extreme 
flexibility of the market of work and the explanation by the current 
government of Argentina of measures that threaten basic freedoms 
(paradoxically in the name of freedom) pushes us to rethink not only the 
words with which we name events and phenomena but also the way in which 
our existences are involved in circulation through precarious spaces.

The possibility of inhabiting capitalist ruins means understanding, on 
the one hand, the terrible damage that this system causes to life on 
earth and, on the other, the importance of relationships between 
species[2]. It is not possible to achieve survival as a species by 
destroying everything else.

Precarious livelihoods allow us to not only think about the way we are 
related in a global world but also about the survival strategies we put 
into play. Consider, for example, the impact of the recent document sent 
by President Milei[3]where the advance of the extractive model is 
clearly seen, which not only impacts socio-environmental health but also 
the conditions of the working class, education and health. , the 
production model, care policies, etc.[4]

"The dream of alienation inspires a modification of the landscape in 
which only one isolated asset matters, while everything else becomes 
weeds or waste[...]When its unique asset can no longer be produced, the 
place can be abandoned: it is He has cut down all the wood; all the oil 
has been exhausted; or the soil no longer supports new crops. Then the 
search for assets elsewhere resumes. Thus, the simplification that 
alienation entails generates ruined, abandoned spaces for the production 
of assets"[5].

This reference takes the name of "sacrifice zones": spaces where nothing 
can grow, let alone multiply. The visits, for example, of the head of 
the United States Southern Command, Laura Richardson, are a clear 
example of the need to expand extractive horizons to continue financing 
the accumulation of property in handfuls of a few people, but at the 
same time the importance of common goods as strategic resources[6].

Current precariousness is a phenomenon that transcends borders and shows 
common 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 in 
Oregon (USA) from a contaminated diversity: the plantation of pinus 
contorta for exploitation as wood, destroying local biodiversity (a case 
similar to what happens in Argentina with pine plantations). native to 
the south of the country, only without the fungus in question). In the 
devastated landscape, matsutake appears as an economic asset that 
requires precarious labor to collect.

Precarious subsistences, lacking any type of security that involve 
interspecific relationships in the Anthropocene era[8]. We can think of 
the parallel of this story with extractive projects such as lithium in 
Argentina where the raw material is extracted violently and exported 
without processing to the destination countries[9].

Rethinking certain ideas from starting points that identify us as a 
class means, among other issues, stressing the vain promises of 
capitalism (such as progress or transformation) and its manifest result: 
everything is considered a financial resource (an example of capital is 
the ministry of recent creation "Human Capital").

The challenge of the coming months will then be how to conceive 
collaborative survival and there the fungi give us a perfect example in 
their biologically situated role. In these territories where 
pre-industrial modes of production still persist, it will then be a 
matter of stopping to look around us instead of continuing only to look 
ahead.

[1]Haraway is a professor emeritus in the departments of history of 
consciousness and feminist studies at the University of California, 
Santa Cruz (UCSC). Throughout her long academic career she has written 
reference texts in fields as diverse as feminism, technoscience, science 
fiction, primatology and postcolonial studies. From all these points of 
view she has questioned the values of dominant humanism in Western 
culture and has studied the relationships between humans and non-humans, 
from cyborgs to companion animals. In her book "Continuing with the 
problem. Generating kinship in the Chthulucene "she proposes to rethink 
the relationships of humans with the Earth and all the other species 
that 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 the 
capitalist 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 recommended 
to read the article "The main labor reforms of Milei's mega DNU" in this 
issue 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 devastated 
landscapes and is prized as a culinary good in Japan. Its 
commercialization is a clear example of the asymmetries between its 
collection (by undocumented migrants) and its commercialization at very 
high prices in the destination country (each unit of matsutake is worth 
20 EUR at the time of writing this article).
[8]The term involves diverse meanings: era in which human disturbance 
surpasses other biological forces (humans as responsible for a 
planetary-scale disaster). There are authors who propose that its 
chronology is linked to the advent of modern capitalism, where, through 
certain techniques, humans and other existences are conceived as mere 
resources.
[9]For more information, we recommend reading the article "The colonial 
fantasy 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 E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en