Toward a Tactical Anthropology
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Plants that Keep the Bad Vibes Away
A special issue on “Phyto-Communicability” will be coming out in the journal Ethnos at the end of this year. My contribution to the issue examines the communicative capacities of plants that are used to “keep bad vibes away” or ward off unwanted presences in the city of Iquitos (Peruvian Amazonia). You can read a pre-print version of the article here.
Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon
The edited volume Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon, edited by Cymene Howe and Anand Pandian, was just published by Punctum Books and is available in pdf format FOR FREE (although Punctum does welcome donations). My contribution – simply titled “Shit” – can also be found in the original series published online by Cultural Anthropology.
Little Free Zine Library in the Collaboratorium @ Ohio State
As students and I have been creating more zines (both through classes and research projects), we have started to build a critical mass of them. You can now find several in the Collaboratorium (Smith Lab 4180) here at OSU. Best of all, they are free!
New Zine on the History of Sanitation
Our zine “Infrastructural Digest” is now completed(!) and 250 copies have just been printed for the opening of the Privy2 demonstration garden. The zine features original artwork and essays by OSU students and faculty that reflect on the history of sanitation and its relationship to agriculture. You can download a copy here.
Night Soil and the Metabolic Rift
Our latest article is out, which examines the history and cross-cultural management of human waste (or “night soil”) as an agricultural resource. The paper grew out of a collaborative class project that I proposed to Master’s degree students enrolled in my Environmental Anthropology course in the spring of 2017. Together, we delved into the archaeology and history of night soil use and management, as well as some recent ethnographic research on the subject. This paper synthesizes that work and puts it in conversation with contemporary theorizing of the “metabolic rift” — or the notion that the rise of industrial capitalism led to a fundamental rupture in human relations to the earth’s ecological systems. The article, titled “Night Soil: Origins, Discontinuities, and Opportunities for Bridging the Metabolic Rift,” can be found in the latest issue of the open access journal Ethnobiology Letters.
A tractor spreads biosolids (i.e. treated sanitation sludge) over a field in central Washington state.
Privy2
This summer I’ve been working with students and colleagues in the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State to install a demonstration garden, titled “Privy2: Biosolids and You.” The project is designed to draw attention to the processes by which waste products are transformed into both agricultural and architectural resources. The garden is fertilized with Com-Til — a Class A biosolids product made by the City of Columbus — and planted with corn. The site will also feature an architectural pavilion constructed primarily of material derived from recycled plastics. You can follow our progress and learn more from the project website. You can also read this recent article that provides an overview of the project.
