Short Abstract

The compounded nature of ongoing ecological crises compels anthropologists to find new tools and perspectives to account for material transformations across time. We invite contributions that explore the intricate relationships between the human and the lithic, the elemental, and the granular.

Long Abstract

Recent work on geological matter in anthropology continues to challenge established dichotomies (geos/bios, life/nonlife), while studying earthly materials and practices has produced innovative conceptual avenues to address the compound crises of our times (Povinelli 2016; Kothari 2021; Whitington an Oguz 2023).

Take sand: a matter omnipresent in everyday life yet rarely noticed. New ethnographies (Zee 2017; Dawson 2023) consider sand a dynamic participant in unfolding relationships with ecosystems, infrastructure, and urban space. Human entanglements with sedimentary processes raise interesting questions about the politics that align the deep time of minerals with economic production, social needs, and the much shorter temporal range of human existence. Or take amber: a substance blurring the boundaries of animal, vegetal, and mineral. Produced by ancient trees, amber captures and preserves biological fragments of a world long gone, offering a glimpse into the deep past while reminding us of the transience of life. Its unique properties invite contemplating the nature of human time, the fragmented and layered histories in which the earth’s past is written, and the metabolic processes of preservation, decay, and change.

Sand and amber, but also mud, oil or ice, among other substances and materials, can help us tell specific stories about today’s polarizing world. Inspired by work in the environmental humanities, material culture, and political geology, this panel asks contributors to re-think sociocultural dynamics from the material landscapes we dwell in: What could an earthly form of anthropology – ‘from the ground up’ – look like?

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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