Elena-Daniela Ana

Project description

Soil is being lost at an accelerating rate through various processes, and its renewal occurs on timescales well beyond human lifetimes. Desertification is one such process, leading to degradation in dry areas and affecting farming communities, soil resilience, and water quality. This project develops a framework for ethnographic research on desertification, focusing on environmental change, farmers’ knowledge, and soil politics. It follows large-scale, production-oriented farmers transitioning to no-till agriculture under economic and climatic pressure in Romania’s largest agricultural region. While not intended as an ecological shift, this practice helps mitigate pervasive soil degradation processes. By viewing soil as both political and experiential terrain, the project asks what it means when soil care emerges not from conservation ethics, but from the need to keep capitalist farming viable in an increasingly unstable environment.