ANU PhD Pre-Submission Seminar by Anthea Snowsill: ‘A Tomato of the Floating World: Assembling Inle Lake’s Cultural Ecology’

Please join us online this Friday for Anthea Snowsill’s pre-submission presentation.

Title: A Tomato of the Floating World: Assembling Inle Lake’s Cultural Ecology

Speaker: Anthea Snowsill

Time: March 26, from 3-5 PM

Via Zooom: https://anu.zoom.us/j/85923983151?pwd=R3BBSkdVL0RiYlBHbGduNngxaWFoUT09
Meeting ID: 859 2398 3151
Password: 264408

Abstract: This thesis offers an object-oriented ethnography of Inle Lakeā€™s floating tomato(es). Using the theoretical and methodological framework of assemblage, I investigate the relationship between the Inle tomato and the wider cultural ecology of Inle Lake. I focus on what the tomato reveals about the networks and relations that constitute the social, ecological, economic and political landscapes of Inle Lake. I argue that the tomato-assemblage is a complex configuration of precariously held together ecological, sociocultural, political and economic relations that are constituted by interactions between environments, markets, technologies, knowledges and power. I suggest that following the tomato-assemblage and its entanglements denaturalizes neatly constructed perceptions of a ā€œless-than-humanā€ nature and reimagines a cultural ecology of Inle Lake that is shaped by contestation around questions of authenticity and sustainability. I make the tomato-assemblage visible from a variety of vantage points that highlight how the overall configuration is brought into being. These vantage points explore the tomato as a material and symbolic linkage to ethnic territory; an attraction within the regional economy of tourism; a system of labour; a commodity valued in affective ways; a product of agricultural biotechnology; and an environmental threat. By ethnographically exploring the tensions involved in how this assemblage is held together I demonstrate that the cultural ecology of Inle Lake is not fixed, nor stable, but rather contingent on its parts and the ways in which they interact with each other. This research has implications for not only ongoing theoretical debates around the importance of centring the non-human in anthropological studies of human society and culture, but also for opening up alternative approaches to understanding topics of ethnicity, economy and ecology in Myanmar.

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