Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Anthropogenic dark earths in the landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa
T2 - intentional or inevitable?
AU - Fraser, James
AU - Leach, Melissa
AU - Fairhead, James
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Drawing on the recent identification of anthropogenic dark earths (ADEs) in West Africa’s Upper Guinea forest region, this article engages with Amazonian debates concerning whether such enriched soils were produced intentionally or not.We present a case study of a Loma settlement in Northwest Liberia in which ethnography, oral history, and landscape mapping reveal subsistence practices and habitus that lead African dark earths (AfDEs) to form inevitably around settlements and farm camps. To consider the question of intentionality andhow the inevitability of AfDE is experienced, we combine historical and political ecology with elements of nonrepresentational theory. The former show how the spatial configuration of AfDEs in the landscape reflect shifting settlement patterns shaped by (1) political and economic transformations, mediated by (2) enduring ritual practices and social relations between first-coming and late-coming social groups that are symbolically related as uncles and nephews. We use nonrepresentational theory to show how the Loma phenomenologicalexperience of these soils and their origins is better conceptualized in terms of sensual objects, the formation of which is inflected by these social and political processes. We thus reframe the debate away from intentionality, to theorize enriched anthropogenic soils and landscapes in terms of shifting sociocultural, political, and historical factors interplaying with the practical, sensually experienced, and inevitable effects of everyday life.
AB - Drawing on the recent identification of anthropogenic dark earths (ADEs) in West Africa’s Upper Guinea forest region, this article engages with Amazonian debates concerning whether such enriched soils were produced intentionally or not.We present a case study of a Loma settlement in Northwest Liberia in which ethnography, oral history, and landscape mapping reveal subsistence practices and habitus that lead African dark earths (AfDEs) to form inevitably around settlements and farm camps. To consider the question of intentionality andhow the inevitability of AfDE is experienced, we combine historical and political ecology with elements of nonrepresentational theory. The former show how the spatial configuration of AfDEs in the landscape reflect shifting settlement patterns shaped by (1) political and economic transformations, mediated by (2) enduring ritual practices and social relations between first-coming and late-coming social groups that are symbolically related as uncles and nephews. We use nonrepresentational theory to show how the Loma phenomenologicalexperience of these soils and their origins is better conceptualized in terms of sensual objects, the formation of which is inflected by these social and political processes. We thus reframe the debate away from intentionality, to theorize enriched anthropogenic soils and landscapes in terms of shifting sociocultural, political, and historical factors interplaying with the practical, sensually experienced, and inevitable effects of everyday life.
KW - historical ecology
KW - nonrepresentational theory
KW - phenomenology
KW - political ecology
KW - speculative realism
U2 - 10.1080/00045608.2014.941735
DO - 10.1080/00045608.2014.941735
M3 - Journal article
VL - 104
SP - 1222
EP - 1238
JO - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
JF - Annals of the Association of American Geographers
SN - 0004-5608
IS - 6
ER -