Description
Book SynopsisKristina M. Lyons presents an ethnography of human-soil relations in which she follows state soil scientists and peasant farmers in Colombia's Putumayo region, showing how their relationship with soil is key to caring for the forest and growing non-illicit crops in the face of violence, militarism, and environmental destruction.
Trade Review“
Vital Decomposition weaves enthralling ecopoetic writing with the finest ethnographic storytelling. Kristina M. Lyons tells us a compelling story of human-soil relations nurturing insurgent life from the very grounds of eco-social devastation. An indispensable and inspiring read for hopeful decolonial naturecultures.” -- María Puig de la Bellacasa, author of * Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds *
“Making several important interventions in biopolitics, multispecies ethnography, and feminist science studies,
Vital Decomposition is a riveting, engaging, timely, and intimate book. It is the best kind of ethnography; it takes us to the small, marginal, and forgotten and examines the world through them, making us feel as though we've been looking at everything the wrong way for a while.” -- Kregg Hetherington, author of * The Government of Beans: Regulating Life in the Age of Monocrops *
“Vital Decomposition is a beautifully written book that takes readers deep inside the worlds of Amazonian farmers, soil scientists, and the Amazonian ecosystem itself…. Readers interested in rural Colombia, alternative agricultural practices, and the connections between knowledge, practice, power, and resistance, will appreciate her work.”
-- Alex Diamond * NACLA *
“Through her research, Lyons weaves poetry and storytelling into a novel analysis of soils. From the perspective of the rural farmers she came to know, Lyons vividly describes the urgent need to ‘think with Amazonian soils’ rather than external systems....” -- Kathleen M. Smits and Jessica M. Smith * Vadose Zone Journal *
“Through sensorially powerful ethnographic writing about relations between humans and soil in Colombia, Lyons tells us a story about soil farmers in the Amazon and soil scientists in Bogotá.... Lyons insists on foregrounding the resilience of people and, crucially, of Amazonian soil.” -- María Elena García * Public Books *
“This exciting and innovative ethnography centers the often invisible, yet ubiquitous, materiality of soil. [
Vital Decomposition] will, I hope, generate a renewed interest in the political ecology of soils and encourage future studies around human-soil relations within the social sciences.” -- Meghan Sullivan * Antipode *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. Life in the Midst of Poison 1
1. From Aerial Spaces to Litter Layers 10
2. The Theater of Life Is Also a Stage of Death: Beyond Surface Chauvinism 41
3. Partial Alliances among Minor Practices: The "Ellusive" Nature of Colombia's Amazonian Plains 70
4. Decomposition as Life Politics: On Reclaiming and Relaying 105
5. Resonating Farms and Vital Spaces: A Person and His Concepts 137
6. Which Soils? Where Soils? Why Soils? 169
Notes 183
References 197
Index 213
