“Hope is patchy" because capitalist and ecological structures themselves are patchy”, say Anna Tsing, Andrew Mathews, and Nils Bubandt. Patchy writing might supplement our re-patching of worlds dead, dying, and re-forming.
…it is us, the people, who create and maintain life, not money or capital. That is subsistence.”
— Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, 2000, 19, The Subsistence Perspective
This is a rhythm of endurance, of surging forward and withdrawing. It is not a rhythm of endless becoming nor of staying put; it is making the most of the “hinge,” of knowing how to move and think through various angles while being fully aware of the constraints, the durability of those things that are “bad for us” (Stoler, 2016)
—AbdouMaliq Simone 2019, 8, Improvised Lives
We don't have to be reborn; we can rebear. This is part of the writer's job, either to rebear the metaphors or refuse to use them.”
— Ursula Le Guin, “Coming back from the silence.” an interview with Ursula Le Guin by Jonathan White.
We’re at a tipping point, a hinge—
This collects my thoughts as I learn - learning through my thoughts to you. I write in order to practise ways of narrating the future we could see, if we put on our agroecological lenses - the plural, hopeful & generous lenses I believe we can all adopt.
Why read this?
I sort through thoughts and contradictions here, sharing my learnings in public. I am privileged to be on a funded research project, through which I can carry out the work I wished to do, to
refute assumptions and discourse about agroecology and smallholder farmers, and
find the connective tissue (beyond words) that can express these and build capacity
I’m still learning, so if I am expressing something in a way that reveals ignorance or absence of care, please teach me. I hope to use this space to learn together with others.
If you’ll like this spark of connection in your inbox - at most once a month - you can sign up for it. And you can unsubscribe anytime.
How did this begin?
I once thought—and still think—there still isn't enough critical writing about many of issues we're facing around food, farming, and land in the region. I’m based in Singapore, but now physically located in Munich at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. I’m at the start of a 4 year “freigeist” project, Environing Infrastructures, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (not the car company, but probably keenly aware of its half-sibling’s emissions).
I also write and repost critical academic work on Twitter, and art and living on Instagram @fuiin.
Go with peace,
~Huiying
~~
Read what’s come before
I wrote for 10 issues (that was about 5 months, till the end of 2019), then took a break to decide if I should continue. I decided I like this style of accountability, of finding and giving voice to things that are otherwise transient, or a part of life we don’t consider. I am also now - for the first time in my life - working in a foreign country for the foreseeable future. The disjunctures are endless, and I will talk about them. It’s within the cracks that we find worlds we never saw before.
I would love if you forward this to your friends - and you can also dip into the archive! Tell me what you think by replying directly to each letter.
Acknowledgements
The quotes above come from readings read amongst circles I am grateful to for sharing their knowledge generously: The Forest Is In The City Is In The Forest 3 month programme, hosted by a lovely, sprawling group: Abhijan Toto for The Forest Curriculum, and Struggles for Sovereignty, which is convened by Bodies of Power / Power for Bodies by Sanne Oorthuizen and Alec Steadman, Bakudapan Food Study Group, and others I am yet to meet. The second, from the Contemporary Anthropology Reading Group (CARG) hosted by the Highland Asia team. I’m grateful to be surrounded by such people!
