Care without Repair: Fungal Labour and the Limits of Restoration

Abstract

Classical sociological accounts have examined efforts to banish disgust and decay from polite society, and post-anthropocentric theories have urged attentiveness to the agencies of nonhumans. This article draws from both streams to propose that attending to the nonhuman labour of decomposition through fungi reveals decay’s indispensability for multispecies flourishing. By foregrounding decomposition as both nourishment and world-making, the article expands prevailing understandings of labour, value, and care beyond the productivist and preservationist assumptions that structure human-centred ethics. It further shows how repair, frequently cast as inherently benevolent, can sometimes stabilise violent continuities and legitimise ongoing forms of harm. In contrast, the fungal illuminates possibilities for care without repair: an ethical nonaction that accompanies decay rather than forecloses it because it recognises breakdown as a condition for multispecies livability.