Urban Pedogeneses

Bibliographic Data

ID18996707
AuthorsG Meulemans (0000-0002-6953-7231, Centre Alexandre Koyré, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume12
Issue1
Pages250-266
Publication date2020-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-8142330
OpenAlexW3033442111
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited30

This article examines the rise of urban soils as a topic of scientific inquiry and ecological engineering in France, and questions how new framings of soil as a material that can be designed reconfigure relationships between urban life and soils in a context of fast-growing cities. As a counterpoint to the current situation, the article first examines how the hard-surfacing of Paris, in the nineteenth century, sought to background the vital qualities of soils in urban areas, making their absence seem perfectly stable and natural. It then shows how the new urban soil science moved away from classical descriptive approaches to soils, and set out to fabricate soils as a research experiment on anthropo-pedogenesis. In the French context, urban soil scientists soon formed new bonds with the worlds of urbanism, administration, and waste management, reframing their approach as a technical response to issues brought by sprawling cities, backgrounding soils again under a trope centered on the management of soil services. These stories allow to critically inhabit soil scientists’ claim that humans participate in pedogenesis by examining the specific conditions in which modern modes of being in the world and urban soils become entangled or disentangled in modern metropolis

Archaeology · Cognitive reframing · Earth science · Environmental planning · Geography · Pedogenesis · Soil water · Urbanism · Environmental Science · French Urban and Social Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Architecture · Geology · Soil Science