Hybrid Knowledge and Its Limits: Mushroom Foraging among Immigrants and Locals

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 29. Other topics

Abstract

This paper examines how migration transforms ecological knowledge through mushroom foraging among immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) and local Israeli foragers. Drawing on sensory ethnography of participant observation, 22 in-depth interviews, and textual analysis, the study shows how traditional ecological knowledge (TK) travels across borders and adapts to new socio-ecological contexts. Mushroom foraging acts as a site of “sensory translation”, where immigrants apply familiar knowledge to unfamiliar ecosystems, generating tensions and negotiations with locally accumulated knowledge. Findings highlight the creation of hybrid knowledge, combining traditional and accumulated knowledges, while reflecting cultural perceptions, environmental concerns, and power dynamics. The paper’s contribution lies in showing that migration is a multidimensional process that transforms both people and their environments. Immigrants’ ecological knowledge migrates, evolves, and reshaped through embodied interactions with nature. Therefore, mushroom foraging provides a lens for understanding broader shifts in the relationships between environment and migration, highlighting how ecological knowledge is simultaneously cognitive, sensory, emotional, and material.

Author

• Riki Anteby, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem