“Vital Decomposition weaves enthralling ecopoetic writing with the finest ethnographic storytelling. Kristina M. Lyons tells us a compelling story of human-soil relations nurturing insurgent life from the very grounds of eco-social devastation. An indispensable and inspiring read for hopeful decolonial naturecultures.”
~María Puig de la Bellacasa, author of, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds
“Making several important interventions in biopolitics, multispecies ethnography, and feminist science studies, Vital Decomposition is a riveting, engaging, timely, and intimate book. It is the best kind of ethnography; it takes us to the small, marginal, and forgotten and examines the world through them, making us feel as though we've been looking at everything the wrong way for a while.”
~Kregg Hetherington, author of, The Government of Beans: Regulating Life in the Age of Monocrops
“Vital Decomposition is a beautifully written book that takes readers deep inside the worlds of Amazonian farmers, soil scientists, and the Amazonian ecosystem itself…. Readers interested in rural Colombia, alternative agricultural practices, and the connections between knowledge, practice, power, and resistance, will appreciate her work.”
“Through her research, Lyons weaves poetry and storytelling into a novel analysis of soils. From the perspective of the rural farmers she came to know, Lyons vividly describes the urgent need to ‘think with Amazonian soils’ rather than external systems....”
~Kathleen M. Smits and Jessica M. Smith, Vadose Zone Journal
“Through sensorially powerful ethnographic writing about relations between humans and soil in Colombia, Lyons tells us a story about soil farmers in the Amazon and soil scientists in Bogotá.... Lyons insists on foregrounding the resilience of people and, crucially, of Amazonian soil.”
~María Elena García, Public Books
“This exciting and innovative ethnography centers the often invisible, yet ubiquitous, materiality of soil. [Vital Decomposition] will, I hope, generate a renewed interest in the political ecology of soils and encourage future studies around human-soil relations within the social sciences.”
~Meghan Sullivan, Antipode
