From Mushroom Men to Mycorrhizal Relations: Imagining Posthuman Aging and Care

This chapter explores mycorrhizal frameworks for imagining posthuman aging and care. Mycorrhiza refers to the symbiotic association between plant roots and fungal mycelia in which the two organisms are conjoined in a mutually beneficial arrangement, exchanging nutrients and chemical messages. Mycorrhizal networks refers to material and symbolic manifestations of interdependence that model more-than-human ways of relational being. This chapter analyzes a novel, Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms (1994), that imagines the mycorrhizal dimensions of human life and conveys the networked capacities of aging bodies as relational organisms. Goto’s novel positions human beings mycorrhizomically and organismically, as entangled and interdependent, depicting her characters as both material entities and narrative subjects enmeshed in dense, vivid, vital worlds teeming with more-than-human life. As Goto’s novel demonstrates, the theorization of care and aging can benefit from posthumanist approaches that engage the vicissitudes of embodied vulnerability in their modeling of relational being. Attending to ‘mycorrhizal networks’ assists in the interrogation and dismantling of ‘the human’ as a discrete, autonomous individual, and highlights the ubiquity and integrity of care across the life course.