4/23

The idea of the "frontier" is discussed in Tsing's "Frontiers of Capitalism," describing the term as a "a zone of not yet - not yet mapped, not yet regulated." There are a few ways of spinning a frontier. One way is glorifying the frontier, going 'where no man has gone before,' and lusting after the allure of voyage and hijacking the frontier's resources (think 'gold rush' of 49). The other way is respecting the natural state of the frontier, and realizing that human influence can disturb its natural condition, at times even desecrate it.

After reading Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," the explorers' mentality towards the 'frontier' seems to lean towards the former. In this reading, we see orchid hunters kill their competition, raid the land's crop and burn the remains, all for the sake of voyage and pride. The chapter conveys the orchid hunters as fervently passionate people, withstanding barely tolerable conditions and the threat of death, for the opportunity to please their funders and reinforce their reputation. There is an aspect of these hunters that seems peaceful with the turf they explore (i.e. falling in love in foreign cultures, turning away from civilization to explore the wild world, working for hardly any profit). Yet there is also an aspect of this practice that seems vain, greedy, and inhumane, forging a price tag on little dollops of nature.

When I first read this, I was startled by how severe and cut throat this industry was. For a prize that is so beautiful and fragile, the inner workings of the hunt were so savage and violent. I began to question how funded exploration could validate such desecration to land, nature, and its native inhabitants. However, Tsing poses the question: How are landscapes made empty and wild so that anyone can come to use and claim them? The question of ownership comes in to play, and whether it is even possible to delegate whether it is right or wrong for the orchid hunters to take the plants from their natural habitat. Can we rationalize the violence in taking from new frontiers? How acceptably heavy can the human hand be in nature?

-CM