Paper short abstract:

I look at the seemingly modest making of things - in clay, in concrete, in steel and in fibre-glass - that have had played a role in the containment, concentration and distribution of nutrients in the earth of the Anthropocene. I consider the prospects, efforts and politics of their re-ordering.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of the Anthropocene invites 'us' - dwellers within a complex earthy system - to confront the makings of both our distant and our more recent pasts. In this paper I look at the seemingly modest making of things, in clay, in concrete, in steel and in fibre-glass that have had played a role in the containment, concentration and distribution of the essential nutrients needed for plant and animal growth. Clay drainage pipes, concrete slatted flooring, fibre-glass welded tanks have been infrastructural innovations made by agricultural engineers and adopted by farmers to hold and distribute nutrient-rich animal excreta and water in ways that complement intensive, highly productive farming units. These material things - slurry tanks, animal stalls, drains, and so on - are implicated in contradictory relations: of cleanliness and separation but also pollution; of vital growth but also strangled ecologies; of a static/ready resource but also hypermobile flows; of capital and debt. I will reflect on the durability of these technologies, their locked-in temporal and spatial relations, and on the efforts of re-making, re-ordering and re-orientating such relations (human and non-human) in the Anthropocene.