The Gift and the Ledger

In February of 2020, I co-presented a role-playing workshop called “The Gift and the Ledger” with my partner, Muindi Fanuel Muindi. I prototyped an immersive storytelling event, referred to as an “Alter-Eco Game” by participants, at Arizona State University’s Synthesis Lab. This workshop guided participants in embodying and analyzing the ever-more-popular-and-trusted block chain economy. This first role play was considered “The Ledger”, in reference to debt management. We then compared and contrasted that experience with the embodying of the "gift economy" of fungal networks and trees in forest ecosystems, and we referred to this role play as “The Gift”. The prompt for the symposium in which we presented was “Trust”, and we thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast how trust works in capitalist economies (The Ledger) with trust in forest ecosystems (The Gift).

During “The Gift” portion of the program, participants embodied the underground network of fungi and plant roots which sustain forests, known as mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizae are the coevolved interactions between fungi and plants which form a network of occasionally antagonistic, but primarily mutualistic, relationships between the organisms which form the base of the rainforest food web.

This role-playing technique has been inspired by my own experiences of the forest. When I visit the forest, I find my senses twining with the perspectives of the living things around me. I feel great joy in being a living thing. Personally, I want others to feel that joy. I want them to be aware of how much life is around them when they enter a forest. Professionally, I hope this specific project evolves into a regular program I can offer and expand into a forest therapy program. I seek ways to help others enter the stories of the natural world and to see the world as full of phenomenal others. Once we feel as though we are inside that story, we can start to imagine how to change the ending of the story. This project challenged me to question my motives and my techniques in this effort.

Images Credit: Megan Patzen