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.
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