Anna Tsing

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (born 1952) is an American professor of anthropology. Tsing is employed at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Tsing received her B.A. from Yale University and completed her masters and Ph.D. at Stanford University. She has contributed, and written several articles and books on a broad range of anthropological subjects and in 2010, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2013, Tsing won a Niels Bohr Professorship at Aarhus University in Denmark for her contribution to interdisciplinary work in the fields of the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and the arts. She is currently developing a transdisciplinary program for exploring the Anthropocene. Tsing is director of the AURA project at Aarhus University.

Notable works

Some of Tsing's notable work comprise the following books:

• In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-way Place (1993)

Anna Tsing's first book centers around individuals from Meratus Dayak, from South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Tsing's key informant is Uma Adang, who provides her insight into shamanism, politics and the mythology in relation to ethnic identity. The book focuses on the topic of marginality within a state and the context of community within a gendered framework.

• Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (2004)

Tsing’s ethnography is based in the Meratus Mountains of South Kalimantan, a province in Indonesia. The term friction is described as, " the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference." This ethnography was based on short term field work rather than a longer term field work; the methods are based on "ethnographic fragments". The book is a study on human dominated landscapes, running themes include corporate exploitation, globalization, environmental activism, and environmental degradation.

• Mushroom at the End of the World: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins (2015)

Tsing's ethnographic account of the Matsutake mushroom gives the readers a look into this rare, prized and expensive fungi. Originally from Japan, the mushrooms first sprouted in the desolate landscape after the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima. Tsing’s account of the Matsuke contributes to the field of anthropology in her ability to study multi-species interactions, using the non-human subject to glean more about the human world.

Tsing follows Matsutake fungi’s international journey in order to give the reader insight into the mushroom’s complex commodity chain connecting to meditations on capitalism. She uses the Matsutake to shed light on a broader themes about how ecology is shaped by human interference.