Under construction

Under construction

This project develops the concept of shadow mapping which serves as a thinking-tool to enhance the “material imagination” (Anderson and Wylie 2009) when examining the notion of a presumed real, or the idea of a single, common world. First, through encounters with flat or planar shadows, I argue that Cartesian spatialities adversely conceive of both matter and shadows as inert. Instead, I offer a dynamic reconceptualization of shadows by drawing from speculative realism, specifically Levi Bryant’s onto-cartography (2014). Second, via three shadowy encounters, I claim that shadows are capable of envelopment, becoming penumbral realms of affect similar to Kathleen Stewart’s atmospheres (2011). Using these encounters, this project argues that shadow mapping is a valuable mechanism for sensing how shadows perform materiality and spawn processual worlds of their own. I conclude by analyzing the onto-political implications of shadowy forms and penumbral realms, positioning shadows as a site of politics that contest the Western notion of a single, factual, and mappable world.

For full text, please email: natasha@themicrocosmos.org.

Drawing upon scholarship from feminist materialisms and political ontology, this work explores the possibility of using “nesting” as an alternative framework in challenging established modernist assumptions about living and interacting in the world. I argue that “nesting” becomes one potential toolkit to both deprioritize conceptions of human agency and highlight matter’s resilience. In confronting notions of intentionality or purposiveness, then, I follow Abrahamson et al. (2015) to posit that nesting practices demonstrate “modes of doing” that occur across three primary axes: care, curation, and dwelling. These practices converge to become a mode of making do, a process of enduring together in otherwise messy worlds. Within the first two sections, I position curation and care within the context of avian nesting to establish the limits of a more liberal notion of agency when thinking about materials and relations. Relatedly, nesting reconfigures the threads of matter into new onto-epistemic arrangements that challenge particular modernist binaries, such as life-nonlife and self-other. I conclude by discussing the processes and implications of dwelling within worlds composed of many temporary homes. 

For full text, please email: natasha@themicrocosmos.org.

A Case Study in Wangchuck Centennial National Park, Nasphel

This case-study aimed to deconstruct narratives around gendered labor structures and the implications of knowledge transfer on economic development in the context of national park governance in the village of Nasphel, Bhutan. Thus, our research sought to answer the question: how does gendered knowledge transfer occur in the traditional agricultural livelihoods of Nasphel in the context of national park governance? 

Through semi-structured interviews with park residents, foresters, and key informants (n=57), we found that knowledge in Nasphel is transferred through observation and participation, also known as experiential learning. Moreover, we discovered that this transfer of agricultural knowledge is being intercepted by various factors, including park development initiatives. This study concluded that while knowledge transfer is gendered, it is also multigenerational. Additionally, we assert the claim that economic development and traditional knowledges can coexist under responsible governance.