The Sociology of Soil in the US: The New Importance of Soil Microbiology

As a settler society with the opportunity to move on once soil "wore out", there has been shifts in understanding what soil is and how we understand it.  Tracing the history of how different actors in the US name and define... [ view full abstract ]

As a settler society with the opportunity to move on once soil "wore out", there has been shifts in understanding what soil is and how we understand it.  Tracing the history of how different actors in the US name and define soil, the co-evolution of soil measurement techniques, technologies (provided by public and private actors), and soil awareness shows the importance of naming a situation in terms of measuring it, acting to remediate it, and measuring the results of that remediation.