This article experiments with combining three concepts—
coordination, assemblage, diagram—to make vivid the composition
of a satoyama forest in central Japan. The forest comes to life as a
more-than-human assemblage that emerges through coordinations
established by evolutionary and historical accommodations to life
cycles, seasonal rhythms, and activity patterns. These coordinations
are expressed through a diagram of intersecting temporalities of people,
plants, and woodlands that condition the flourishing or decline of wild
matsutake mushrooms. Working diagrammatically, we can better articulate
how juxtapositions of humans and non-humans become assemblages
that hold together through coordinations—without a unified
purpose or design. We argue that understanding coordination is key to
more livable multispecies worlds.
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