Vital decomposition: soil practitioners and life politics

"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"

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?

Includes bibliographical references and index.