An excellent quote from Anna Tsing, found in the episode 32 of the “Conversations in Anthropology” podcast series:

“As I continue to read about the challenges around us, I have decided that’s not enough, we also gonna have to tell stories where we’re not winning, where there's just terrible things happening and we might not win, and I know anthropologists have been very critical of those kind of stories, particularly as paralyzing, as leaving one dead-end. Then it’s gonna be a challenge, how do write those stories in a way that they’re not paralyzing, that they bring us to life, that we notice the details, all that art of noticing is in there, that we ‘stay in the trouble’ as Donna Haraway puts it, that we get involved, so that’s our challenge. So that rather than saying don’t do it, I think the challenge of our time is: ‘how do we tell terrible stories beautifully.’”

Why do I blog this? This quote corresponds to Tsing’s answer to the interviewer’s questions about the importance of hope in anthropological narratives. I find it interesting with regards to different projects that I’ve been working on for few years, like the Bestiary of the Anthropocene, as well as my alpine inquiries.