The Politics of Soils on the Medieval Deccan, Southern India

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Political Geologies in the Ancient and Recent Pasts: Ontology, Knowledge, and Affect" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper considers the politics of soils on the Medieval Deccan. Drawing on inscriptional stelae that record land donations and distinctions, multi-spectral remote sensing datasets, micromorphological analyses, and archaeological survey results, it evaluates how the classification, distribution, and use of different soil series during the medieval period fomented social concerns and ultimately generated public resistance to some modes of temple patronage and economic practices. In doing so, the paper also critically addresses the utility of “new materialist” frameworks for evaluating soils and sediments as political actants in this socio-historical context.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Political Geologies in the Ancient and Recent Pasts: Ontology, Knowledge, and Affect   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36886.0