01. Conflict:
Samples at War


Mapping soil surveys and anti-colonial liberation 1946-74.

My investigation departs from the present-day uses of the soil samples extracted from Angola under colonial occupation, in relation with the period coinciding with the independence struggles, between 1961 and 1974. By tracking the mobilisation of the samples located in the archives in Lisbon, I explore the co-constitutive relations that occur between the laboratory and the field: how survey as a method of inquiry informed scientific knowledges of soil, and how the order of the laboratory is projected back and inscribed in the land. Based on a spatiotemporal analysis of the data extracted from the soil surveys in relation to the timeline of the anti-colonial conflict, I claim here that the fieldwork undertaken by soil scientists in the north of Angola coincides with the outbreak of the independence struggles in 1961.
(1)   Professor Madalena Fonseca explains the difference in the horizons of a group of soil monoliths extracted from Angola, exhibited at the Pedoteca in Lisbon. 




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Located in the basement of the university, the Pedoteca displays a collection of soils extracted from formerly colonised territories exhibited together with soils from mainland Portugal. The multiple geographies and conflicting political histories represented by these samples are flattened in the scientific presentation of the archive, which is comprised of a series of vertical soil profiles surrounded by corridors lined with glass jars filled with soil samples taken at different depths. In the centre of the room, standing back-to-back are two rows of soil monoliths dating from 1950s-60s that were extracted from Angola and Alentejo, two territories valued at the time for their potential for agricultural expansion. Interior views from the spaces of the Pedoteca in the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Lisbon. All images taken by the author, August, 2016.




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(3)   Soil Surveys in Angola, between 1954-1970. Map by the author. Base raw data courtesy of Ulisboa/IICT







(4)   Soil Surveys in Angola, between 1954-1970. Map by the author. Base raw data courtesy of Ulisboa/IICT