Introduction

In this special issue, we draw on our collaborative research as the Matsutake Worlds Research Group to explore the world-making dynamics of multispecies encounters. We center our exploration on matsutake, a gourmet mushroom eaten primarily in Japan. Drawing on cases from around the world, we suggest that the cosmopolitan worlds of matsutake cannot be accounted for by any single agent or individual set of cultural or political economic processes. Rather, we propose that contingent multispecies attunements and coordinations knit together the various world-making processes that allow matsutake to flourish. We use the notion of ‘elusiveness’ to capture these shifting dynamics of attraction, coordination, and elusion.