While the ethic of care has generally been regarded as an appropriate attitude for nurses, it has not received equal attention as a mode of ethical problem solving. The primary nursing model is exp...

This article ponders the influences ofthe dichotomous nature of our understanding law andto questions that starting point on different levels oflegal thinking.The purpose of law is to make rules for our socialbehaviour but there are no specific images of humanbeings behind law. When there are no defined images,subconscious cultural images shape our thinkingsometimes even without our realizing it, and withoutserious discussion. The division between family andthe market has to do with gender divisions as well aswith the division between family and (...) contract law. Thelogic and human image behind these two branches of lawis different.Even if we may behave differently in differentsituations we do not become altogether differentkinds of human beings with different values when wechange surroundings. Thus, we might instead develop asa starting point human co-operation law where familyand business partnerships are seen as specialbranches. The starting point of this co-operation lawwould be many-sided and pluralistic human beings, who would be atthe same time loving and egotistic, communal andindividual, feminine and masculine. Such human beingsmay be regarded as multicoloured instead of white orblack. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between care and justice reasoning, dispositional empathy variables and meta‐ethical thinking among 128 students from a university of applied sciences. The measures were Skoe’s Ethic of Care Interview, the Defining Issues Test, Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Meta‐Ethical Questionnaire. The results showed that levels of care reasoning were positively related to the post‐conventional schema and negatively related to the personal interest schema in justice reasoning. Age, meta‐ethical thinking, the post‐conventional schema and (...) perspective taking predicted care reasoning. Sympathy was positively related to both modes of moral reasoning among men and predicted their care reasoning. The results point out common elements for care and justice reasoning, underscore the importance of perspective taking for moral reasoning and indicate that the relationship between affective‐based empathy and moral reasoning is gender‐specific and far more complex than previous theories suggest. (shrink)

Dilemma discussions have been proven to be one of the most effective methods to enhance students’ moral reasoning in ethics education. Dilemma discussions are increasingly arranged online, but research on the topic has remained sparse, especially in the context of continuing professional education. The aim of the present paper was to develop a method of dilemma discussions for professional ethics. The method was based on asynchronous discussions in small groups. Health and social care students raised work-related dilemmas from their experiences (...) and discussed them in terms of professional values, ethical guidelines and theories. Participants in this quasi-experimental study were 87 first-term graduate students at a Finnish university of applied sciences. Health and social care students in two consecutive ethics courses constituted two experiment groups, whereas health and social care students and business students in other programmes served as control groups. Students filled in a Defining Issues Test (DIT2) at the beginning of their studies and three months apart. Statically significant increase in moral reasoning was evidenced for experiment group 2, when discussion groups were purportedly composed to maximise differences in initial levels of moral reasoning. Findings suggest that online dilemma discussions can advance students’ moral reasoning development, especially when students’ exposure to higher-level arguments is ensured through complementary means, such as instructions, examples and plenary discussions. Online real-life dilemma discussions may also serve other important goals of ethics education, especially acquiring ethical concepts, and they can promote other components of ethical decision making: ethical sensitivity and motivation, and acquisition of implementation skills. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno are both post-Shoah philosophers who experienced refugeedom. In different contexts, both discuss the question of a linkage between language and soil, and ultimately show that the distinction between the native and the foreign is untenable. I suggest that Levinas’s evocation of linguistic soil illustrates his understanding of Jewishness as defined by a ceding of ground, thus showing that Levinas’s thought relies on a conception of ground in order to then reject it. Adorno, in evoking a (...) “language without soil,” argues for a conception of language that rejects organicism, seeing both loanwords and Jews as examples of difference without foreignness. (shrink)

Soil balancing is widely used in organic farming, but little is known about the practice because technical knowledge and goals for the practice are produced and negotiated within an alternative community of practice (CoP). We used a review of the private soil balancing literature and semi-structured interviews with farmers and consultants to document the knowledge, shared meanings, and goals of key actors within the soil balancing CoP. Our findings suggest this CoP is dominated by discourse between private consultants and farmers, (...) with few contributions to or from scientists or the peer reviewed literature. The idea of soil balancing is centered around improving soil quality through adjustments in Base Cation Saturation Ratios (BCSR), and practitioners report a wide range of positive agronomic outcomes. For most soil balancers, however, BCSR is only one part of a broader approach to soil health management that also utilizes traditional soil fertility recommendations and soil health-building cultural management practices. Meanwhile, a survey of land grant university soil fertility specialists and the peer-reviewed literature documented a high degree of skepticism and a lack of scientific evidence that BCSR can boost crop yields. We conclude that this scientific discourse reflects a disconnect from the practices and meanings used in the soil balancing CoP. While tensions between the dominant and niche agricultural knowledge systems are not unique, we believe a better appreciation for the nuanced meanings and goals within the soil balancing CoP present an opening for expanded collaborations with scientists doing research on soil health. (shrink)

Climate change is a wicked problem with causes and consequences overlapping with other wicked problems and no single solution (Hulme 2015). For example, the frequent droughts associated with climate change exacerbate another major problem facing humanity as we enter the Anthropocene: how to produce adequate food to feed a growing population without increasing pollution or “more food with low pollution (MoFoLoPo)” (Davidson et al. 2015). Soils represent an intersection of these two wicked problems, because they are integral to food production (...) through agriculture and also are an important component of global climate models. Recent focus in the field of soil carbon cycling has facilitated a transformation in our understanding of the processes that control this important resource. This understanding is critical to responding to both wicked problems. (shrink)

Considerable attention has focussed on the potential of indigenous agricultural knowledge for sustainable development. Drawing upon fieldwork on the soil and water management principles of rice farming systems in Senegambia, this paper examines the potential of the traditional system for a sustainable food security strategy. Problems with pumpirrigation are reviewed as well as previous efforts in swamp rice development. It is argued that sustainability depends on more than ecological factors and in particular, requires sensitivity to socio-economic parameters such as the (...) labor demands of the food security strategy, the sexual division of labor, and food pricing policies. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This chapter interrogates the figure “without soil” in relation to pivotal concerns in Theodor W. Adorno's thought. Freedom, the element of philosophy, proves itself as much in the conscious dismissal as in the rescuing return. The return is not that of something repressed, a claim suppressed by another claim, by the blank refusal to have anything to do with something. The fact that Adorno's thinking draws on dialectical motifs means that the conscious dismissal turns against what exists, against what is (...) merely natural, isolated, abstract in life; the life of the spirit that has freed itself from abstraction no longer sets itself in opposition to death. It no longer takes control of death as negativity and, for that very reason, no longer succumbs to it. If one wanted to revert to Kantian terminology, one could say that philosophy is concerned with neither inclination nor respect, but with favor. (shrink)

Communication is defined as an interaction between at least two living agents which share a repertoire of signs. These are combined according to syntactic, semantic and context dependent, pragmatic rules in order to coordinate behavior. This volume deals with the important roles of soil bacteria in parasitic and symbiotic interactions with viruses, plants, animals and fungi. Starting with a general overview of the key levels of communication between bacteria, further reviews examine the various aspects of intracellular as well as intercellular (...) biocommunication between soil microorganisms. Th is includes the various levels of biocommunication between phages and bacteria, between soil algae and bacteria, and between bacteria, fungi and plants in the rhizosphere, the role of plasmids and transposons, horizontal gene transfer, quorum sensing and quorum quenching, bacterial-host cohabitation, phage-mediated genetic exchange and soil viral ecology. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Soil challenges environmentalists to think more deeply and creatively about agriculture. Paul B. Thompson identifies four `worldviews' which tackle agricultural ethics according to different philosophical priorities; productionism, stewardship, economics and holism. He examines current issues such as the use of pesticides and biotechnology from these ethical perspectives. This book achieves an open-ended account of sustainability designed to minimise hubris and help us to recapture the spirit of the soil.

Many of the most important questions about primitive certainty have to do with the distinction between primitive certainty as a practical attitude or disposition and primitive certainty as a psychological attitude and with the distinction between these and primitive, objective certainty.

The absence of a national soilclassification system for Nigeria hinderssuccessful agrotechnology transfer inparticular, and agricultural development ingeneral. A discussion of the role of indigenousknowledge in agricultural development showsthat indigenous knowledge of the soil can beintegrated with modern soil science to developa soil classification system for the country.Much as local knowledge is invaluable foradvancing scientific knowledge and vice versa,caution is given against overestimating therole of indigenous knowledge in developmentalactivities. It is important to encourage theproper integration of all knowledge systems increating new (...) paradigms for sustainabledevelopment in Nigeria. (shrink)

Sustaining soil fertility is essential to the prosperity of many households in the mid-hills of Nepal, but there are concerns that the breakdown of the traditional linkages between forest, livestock, and cropping systems is adversely affecting fertility. This study used triangulated data from surveys of households, discussion groups, and key informants in 16 wards in eastern and western Nepal to determine the existing practices for soil fertility management, the extent of such practices, and the perception of the direction of changes (...) in soil fertility. The two principal practices for maintaining soil fertility were the application of farmyard manure (FYM) and of chemical fertilizer (mainly urea and diammonium phosphate). Green manuring, in-situ manuring, slicing terrace risers, and burning plant residues are rarely practiced. FYM usage was variable with more generally applied to khet land (average 6053 kg fresh weight manure ha−1) than to bari land (average 4185 kg fresh weight manure ha−1) with manure from goats and poultry preferred above that from cows and buffaloes. Almost all households (98%) apply urea to khet land and 87% to bari land, with 45% applying diammonium phosphate to both types of land. Application rates and timings of applications varied considerably both within and between wards suggesting poor knowledge transfer between the research and farming communities. The benefits of chemical fertilizers in terms of ease of application and transportation in comparison with FYM, were perceived to outweigh the widely reported detrimental hardening of soil associated with their continued usage. Among key informants, FYM applied in conjunction with chemical fertilizer was the most popular amendment, with FYM alone preferred more than chemical fertilizer alone – probably because of the latter’s long-term detrimental effects. Key informant and householder surveys differed in their perception of fertility changes in the last decade probably because of differences in age and site-specific knowledge. All key informants felt that fertility had declined but among households, only about 40% perceived a decline with the remainder about evenly divided between no change and an increase. Householders with small landholdings (< 0.5 ha) were more likely to perceive increasing soil fertility while those with larger landholdings (> 2 ha) were more likely to perceive declining fertility. Perceived changes in soil fertility were not related to food self-sufficiency. The reasons for the slow spread of new technologies within wards and the poor understanding of optimal use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with improved quality FYM may repay further investigation in terms of sustaining soil fertility in this region. (shrink)

The paper discusses two different approaches to Nazism and the Holocaust. The first approach is different versions of the Sonderweg thesis arguing that the explanation of the "German catastrophe" should be sought in the particular features of German history. The second approach rests on searching for external, exogenous factors that played a formative role in the emergence of National Socialism. The examples illustrating these two approaches are recently published books by Aleksandar Molnar and Michael Kellogg, reviewed in detail in the (...) paper. Starting from an interpretation of these books, the author argues that the limitations of both approaches result from the complexity of a historical experience that resists rationalization. U radu se razmatraju dva razlicita pristupa objasnjenju nacizma i holokausta. Prvi obuhvata razlicite verzije Sonderweg teze prema kojoj se u posebnosti nemacke istorije trazi objasnjenje "nemacke katastrofe". Drugi pristup pociva na traganju za spoljasnjim, egzogenim faktorima koji su imali formativnu ulogu u nastanku nacionalsocijalizama. Primeri kojima se ilustruju ova dva stanovista su nove knjige Aleksandra Molnara i Majkla Keloga koje se u radu detaljno prikazuju. Na osnovu interpretacije ovih knjiga, autor ukazuje da su ogranicenja oba navedena pristupa posledica kompleksnosti istorijskog iskustva koje se opire racionalizaciji. (shrink)

Domestic livestock animals and soils must be considered together as part of an agroecosystem which includes plants. Soil sustainability may be simply defined as the maintenance of soil productivity for future generations. There are both positive and negative aspects concerning the role of animals in soil sustainability. In a positive sense, agroecosystems which include ruminant animals often also include hay forage-or pasture-based crops in the humid regions. Such crops stabilize the soil by decreasing erosion, improving soil structure and usually require (...) fewer chemical inputs. Monogastric animal culture is based on an agroecosystem consisting of mainly grain crops. These crops can result in the soil being exposed to water and wind erosion although soil conservation practices that significantly reduce soil losses may be followed. The management of animal manures is not always compatible with soil conservation practices. Careful management of the nutrients in manure is absolutely necessary to avoid nitrate contamination of ground water or phosphorus loading of streams and lakes. In a negative sense, increases in animal livestock populations in association with human population growth are promoting desertification in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The key component for a fully compatible and acceptable association between domestic animals and soil productivity is proper management. Careful management of the components of an animal-based agroecosystem is required if soil productivity and environmental quality are to be maintained. Although we have much to learn, technologies are available to move a considerable way towards this ideal state. (shrink)

Domestic livestock animals and soils must be considered together as part of an agroecosystem which includes plants. Soil sustainability may be simply defined as the maintenance of soil productivity for future generations. There are both positive and negative aspects concerning the role of animals in soil sustainability. In a positive sense, agroecosystems which include ruminant animals often also include hay forage-or pasture-based crops in the humid regions. Such crops stabilize the soil by decreasing erosion, improving soil structure and usually require (...) fewer chemical inputs. Monogastric animal culture is based on an agroecosystem consisting of mainly grain crops. These crops can result in the soil being exposed to water and wind erosion although soil conservation practices that significantly reduce soil losses may be followed. The management of animal manures is not always compatible with soil conservation practices. Careful management of the nutrients in manure is absolutely necessary to avoid nitrate contamination of ground water or phosphorus loading of streams and lakes. In a negative sense, increases in animal livestock populations in association with human population growth are promoting desertification in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. The key component for a fully compatible and acceptable association between domestic animals and soil productivity is proper management. Careful management of the components of an animal-based agroecosystem is required if soil productivity and environmental quality are to be maintained. Although we have much to learn, technologies are available to move a considerable way towards this ideal state. (shrink)

Three different types of low cost soil amendments, namely, EDTA, elemental S and N-fertilizer, were investigated with Vetiver grass, Vetiveria zizanioides (Linn.) Nash growing under highly mixed Cd–Pb contamination conditions. A significant increase (p < 0.05) in Cd and Pb accumulation were recorded in the shoots of all EDTA and N-fertilizer assisted treatments. The accumulation of Cd in 25 mmol EDTA/kg soil and 300 mmol N/kg soil showed relatively higher translocation factor (1.72 and 2.15) and percentage metal efficacy (63.25 % (...) and 68.22 %), respectively, compared to other treatments. However, it was observed that the increased application of elemental S may inhibit the availability of Pb translocation from soil-to-root and root-to-shoot. The study suggests that viable application of 25 mmol EDTA/kg, 300 mmol N/kg and 20 mmol S/kg soil have the potential to be used for soil amendment with Vetiver grass growing under contaminated mixed Cd–Pb soil conditions. (shrink)

The way we farm, the kinds of backyards and landscapes we favor, and the way we control patterns of development are creating an invisible crisis through their affects upon soil ecology. The invisibility of soil ecosystems, the seemingly alien properties of the organisms that inhabit them, and the specialized knowledge required to understand them create obstacles to moral concern for these fountains of life. Our treatment of soils has reached the point of crisis. Obstacles to moral thinking about soils might (...) be overcome by supplying the moral imagination with a deeper understanding of our own biological identity as ecosystems analogous in organization and functions to soil ecosystems. Not only have microbes created the conditions necessary for human life, but they have shaped our evolutionary history and helped constitute the human genome. Our biological identity encompasses communities of microbes, such that humans (and all organisms) are most properly understood as ecosystems. For this reason, moral concern for humans implies moral concern for ecosystems. (shrink)

Farmers’ decisions to conserve natural resources generally and soil and water particularly are largely determined by their knowledge of the problems and perceived benefits of conservation. In Ethiopia, however, farmer perceptions of erosion problems and farmer conservation practices have received little analysis or use in conservation planning. This research examines farmers’ views of erosion problems and their conservation knowledge and practices in the Beressa watershed in the central highlands of Ethiopia. Data were obtained from a survey of 147 farm households (...) managing 713 fields during the 2002/2003 cropping season. In-depth interviews and group discussions were also held with the farmers to obtain additional information. The results show that 72% of the farmers reported erosion problems, and they recognized that conservation was necessary. However, they considered erosion to be severe mostly when visible signs – rills and gullies – appeared on their fields. The majority of the farmers believe that erosion could be halted, and they use a range of practices for erosion control and fertility improvement. These include contour plowing (83%), drainage ditches (82%), and stone terraces/bunds (73%). Nevertheless, despite decades of conservation intervention in the area, it appears that most farmers have developed negative attitudes towards externally recommended measures. The research concludes that under the conditions present in the Ethiopian central highlands, soil and water conservation interventions should consider farmers’ conservation knowledge and practices to improve acceptance and adoption of the recommendations. (shrink)

Farmers’ decisions to conserve natural resources generally and soil and water particularly are largely determined by their knowledge of the problems and perceived benefits of conservation. In Ethiopia, however, farmer perceptions of erosion problems and farmer conservation practices have received little analysis or use in conservation planning. This research examines farmers’ views of erosion problems and their conservation knowledge and practices in the Beressa watershed in the central highlands of Ethiopia. Data were obtained from a survey of 147 farm households (...) managing 713 fields during the 2002/2003 cropping season. In-depth interviews and group discussions were also held with the farmers to obtain additional information. The results show that 72% of the farmers reported erosion problems, and they recognized that conservation was necessary. However, they considered erosion to be severe mostly when visible signs – rills and gullies – appeared on their fields. The majority of the farmers believe that erosion could be halted, and they use a range of practices for erosion control and fertility improvement. These include contour plowing (83%), drainage ditches (82%), and stone terraces/bunds (73%). Nevertheless, despite decades of conservation intervention in the area, it appears that most farmers have developed negative attitudes towards externally recommended measures. The research concludes that under the conditions present in the Ethiopian central highlands, soil and water conservation interventions should consider farmers’ conservation knowledge and practices to improve acceptance and adoption of the recommendations. (shrink)

As populations grow and arable land becomes increasingly scarce, large-scale long- term land leases are signed at a growing rate. Countries and investors with large amounts of financial resources and a strong agricultural industry seek long-term land leases for agricultural exploitation or investment purposes. Leaders of financially poorer countries often advertise such deals as a fast way to attract foreign capital. Much has been said about the short-term social costs these types of leases involve, however, less has been said about (...) the normative dimension of their long-term environmental impact. We therefore will focus on the likely impact such deals have for soil conservation, by (1) briefly introducing the basics of long-term leasing arrangements by comparing land leases to the renting of buildings, (2) explaining from a soil sciences perspective the difficulties in assessing the current value of an estate and in calculating the damages of soil erosion and degradation, and (3) show how difficult it is to incentivize the conservation of soil quality when one cannot sufficiently and cost-effectively valorize existing environmental capital and eventual future damages. Attempting to oblige tenants through contracts to invest in sustainable stewardship has limited potential when liability payments do not reflect true costs and are hard to enforce. (shrink)

Most aspects of agriculture in Cuba prior to 1989 were comparable to California: a high energy input, conventional agriculture (based on what the Cubans now call the “classical model”) in which little was done to protect the nation's soils from erosion, loss of fertility, salinization, and other forms of degradation. In stark contrast the new “Alternative Model,” which has been rapidly replacing the previous model since 1989, emphasizes soil conservation and rehabilitation and the general improvement of the nation's soils as (...) the key to sustaining low-input production and attainment of food security. One of the first steps in implementing the new model was the launching of an ambitious program to reclassify, evaluate, and map the nation's soils in great detail, and to interpret the maps for management of sustainable production. A main feature of this program is coordinated fertility trials to determine, for each combination of crop and soil, the minimum quantity of plant nutrients needed to produce the crop. The build up and maintenance of soil fertility and productivity is being accomplished with various organic and mineral amendments and biofertilizers, produced or mined within the country (locally, where possible) and through rational management utilizing cover crops, green manures, crop successions (intercropping and rotations), and other appropriate technologies. Rehabilitation of degraded soils, tillage reduction, reforestation, vermiculture, vermicomposting, and other forms of waste cycling are other features of the new model that are important to soil conservation and maintenance for sustainable production. (shrink)

Many twentieth-century accounts of history have used geological tropes to describe the phenomenon of historical knowledge, and such terms have been of particular importance in the phenomenological tradition. In Heidegger's references in Being and Time to the "soil of history," Husserl's account in his later work of "sedimentation" in the lifeworld, and the reformulation of this notion in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, geological tropes are used to illustrate important insights into the relation between contingency, a priority and historicity. This paper (...) seeks to contribute to an understanding of history understood phenomenologically as historicity through an analysis of these geological tropes. I argue that such geological tropes help the phenomenologist to describe the way in which history is always determined within a complex interplay between only temporarily fixed determining structures - such as riverbanks, insoluble sediment, soil, etc. - and free-flowing praxis, a situation in which historical events are at once determinant of and themselves determined by human activity. Paradoxically, the constant and "grounding" element in such conceptions of history is not the sediment and hard rock of historical fact, but the the constant change and variability-despite the sense giving continuity - of human experience structured by historicity. I begin with a brief overview of the landscape on the philosophy of history in which these views arose, and then continue to an analysis of the tropes themselves. (shrink)

Do states have a right to exclude prospective immigrants as they see fit? According to statists the answer is a qualified yes. For these authors, self-determining political communities have a prima facie right to exclude, which can be overridden by the claims of vulnerable groups such as refugees and children born in the state’s territory. However, there is a concern in the literature that statists have not yet developed a theory that can protect children born in the territory from being (...) excluded from the political community. For if the self-determining political community has the right to decide who should form the self in the first place, then that right should count against both newcomers by immigration and newcomers by birth. Or so the concern goes. In this essay, I defend statism against this line of criticism and provide a liberal justification for the inclusion of children born within the state’s borders. My account leads to some surprising implication for citizenship law, as well as immigration arrangements in the area of asylum and unauthorized immigration. (shrink)

Wittgenstein likened himself to a soil distinctive only in that once implanted with the seeds of great thinkers, interesting flora grew. This chapter examines the influence on him of authors he regarded as truly original, such as Bolzmann, Hertz, Schopenhauer, Frege and Russell.

Sustainable soil management is imperative for agriculture development in any area of the planet Earth so that future generations can enjoy the benefits Earth provides, which is the production of sufficient quantities of healthy food on the soils with preserved natural fertility. Awareness of the need for sustainable development is already present to a certain degree. Therefore, it is necessary to use all of the scientific and professional potential to create appropriate research programs and the implementation of those results in (...) practice. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno's multifaceted work has exerted a profound impact on far-ranging discourses and critical practices in late modernity. His analysis of the fate of art following its alleged end, of ethical imperatives "after Auschwitz," of the negative dialectic of myth and freedom from superstition, of the manipulation of consciousness by the unequal siblings of fascism and the culture industry, and of the narrowly-conceived concept of reason that has given rise to an unprecedented exploitation of nature and needless human suffering, (...) all speak to central concerns of our time. The essays collected here analyze the full range of implications emanating from Adorno's demand that the task of critical thinking be to imagine a mode of being in the world that occurs in and through a language that has liberated itself from the spell of an alleged historical and political inevitability, what he once tellingly called a "language without soil." Adorno' s finely chiseled sentences perform a ceaseless gesture of thoughtful vigilance, a vigilance understood not in the sense of moralizing or ethical normativity but of a rigorous attention to the presuppositions of thinking itself. The volume's fresh readings conspire to yield a refractory and unorthodox Adorno, a suggestive and at times infuriating thinker of the first order, whose intellectual gestures sponsor politically conscious modes of theoretical speculation in a late modernity that may still have a future because its language and aspirations are without soil. Also included is an annotated translation of a seminal interview Adorno gave in 1969 concerning the relationship of Critical Theory to political activism. In it, the dialectical interplay between thought and action forcefully emerges. (shrink)

In recent decades, anthropogenic soils have become so ubiquitous that for some authors they should be taken as the “golden spike” signaling the start of the Anthropocene. Despite their prominence, leading soil taxonomies have resisted calls to recognize them as a proper kind of soil. Such omission has importantly limited the ways in which soil practitioners can account and deal with the sociopolitical aspects embedded in soil formation. Approaching the issue from a sociomaterial perspective, this paper studies the effects of (...) such omission on the work of soil scientists working in northern Chile. By contrasting their usage of the USDA/NRCS soil typology with the realities found in the field, the work of strategic unknowing that such typologies achieve becomes evident. To challenge such situation, the paper concludes exploring the notion of emergent taxonomies, classifications that are sensitive to local configurations of materials, living beings and power out which soils emerge. (shrink)

Boreal forests store a globally significant pool of carbon (C), mainly in tree biomass and soil organic matter (SOM). Although crucial for future climate change predictions, the mechanisms underlying C stabilization are not well understood. Here, recently discovered mechanisms behind SOM stabilization, their level of understanding, interrelations, and future directions in the field are provided. A recently unraveled mechanism behind C stabilization via interaction of root‐derived tannins with fungal necromass emphasizing fungal necromass chemistry is brought forth. The long‐lasting dogma of (...) the stability of SOM on minerals is challenged and the newest insights from the field of soil fauna and their influence on SOM stabilization are provided. In conclusion, mechanisms unraveled during the last decade are crucial steps forward to draw a holistic view of the main drivers of SOM stabilization. (shrink)

This article examines India’s response to the global soil health crisis. A longstanding centre of agricultural production and innovation, India has recently launched an ambitious soil health programme. The country’s Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme intervenes in farm-scale decisions about efficient fertiliser use, envisioning farmers as managers and soil as a substrate for production. India is also home to one of the world’s largest alternative agriculture movements: natural farming. This puts farmer expertise at the centre of soil fertility and attends (...) to the wider ecological health of soils. Despite emerging as a mode of resistance to dominant agricultural systems, natural farming is now being delivered in increasingly bureaucratic ways by India’s state governments. This article offers Himachal Pradesh as a case study in how the soil is governed, drawing on 38 semi-structured interviews with scientists, agricultural officers, non-governmental organisation leaders, and activists. Rather than assess approaches to soil health according to their ecological bottom line, we examine the differing forms of knowledge, expertise and ‘truth’ in the SHC and Natural Farming approaches. Our analysis reveals discontinuities in how farmers are imagined, as well as continuities in how quasi-spiritual language combines in a bionationalist project, positing assumptions about the correct arrangement of life in nationalist terms. We point to a shift toward hybrid and pick-and-mix approaches to soil health, as farmers and their organisers are increasingly invested with the capacities to combine multiple options. We see a fracturing of expertise and the opening up of epistemic pluralism in responses to the soil fertility crisis. (shrink)