Vital decomposition : soil practitioners and life politics / Kristina M. Lyons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lyons, Kristina M. (Kristina Marie), 1979- author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Soil degradation--Colombia--Putumayo (Department).

Soil degradation.

Colombia--Putumayo (Department).

Environmental degradation--Colombia--Putumayo (Department).

Environmental degradation.

Nature--Effect of human beings on--Colombia--Putumayo (Department).

Nature.

Nature--Effect of human beings on.

Putumayo (Colombia : Department)--Environmental conditions.

Putumayo (Colombia : Department).

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 218 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2020.

System Details:

Mode of Access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

"VITAL DECOMPOSITION is an experimental ethnography of soil-- not only as object, but as subject and collaborator-- set in southern Colombia, particularly in the Amazonian state of Putumayo. Kristina Lyons theorizes the relationships between life and death and between materiality and politics under conditions of militarization and armed conflict. In what ways, she asks, do human-soil relations take on political importance in the complex nexus of anti-drug policy, development agendas, agri-environmental sciences, and daily life under military duress? By focusing on farmers' attunement to the workings of the hojarasca (the decomposing layers of leaves used as compost), Lyons explores the kinds of propositional life-making processes being actualized in the midst of chemically degraded ecologies. In other words, she highlights the ways that farmers cultivate gardens, care for the forest, and grow food in a criminalized and chemically assaulted world, and also the potentialities embedded in these practices.... This book will be of interest to students and scholars in anthropology, environmental studies, science studies, and Latin American studies"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction. Life in the midst of poison

From aerial spaces to litter layers

The theater of life is also a stage of death

Partial alliances among minor practices warning : highly toxic experiments

Decomposition as life politics border crossing

Resonating farms and vital spaces : a person and his concepts

Conclusion. Which soils? Where soils? Why soils?

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Lyons, Kristina M. (Kristina Marie), 1979- Vital decomposition.

ISBN:

9781478009207

1478009209

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.