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Fabricating unity: the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World
Einheit schaffen: Die FAO-UNESCO Weltbodenkarte
[journal article]
Abstract As a contribution to the United Nation’s “Development Decade” of the 1960s, the UN FAO and UNESCO collaborated to produce a Soil Map of the World. Because of soil’s privileged place in mid-twentieth century conservationist thought and its material characteristics, which were extraordinarily resistan... view more
As a contribution to the United Nation’s “Development Decade” of the 1960s, the UN FAO and UNESCO collaborated to produce a Soil Map of the World. Because of soil’s privileged place in mid-twentieth century conservationist thought and its material characteristics, which were extraordinarily resistant to standardized classification, analysis of this project reveals with particular clarity how scientists made knowledge about the global environment in the international community. Producing credible global environmental knowledge required a worldwide network of disciplined observers, but soil scientists understood the Soil Map of the World as a means to produce this transnational community of experts. At a scale of 1:5 million, the units of the map applied to no place in particular; it was a heuristic device. The legend, which presented a new international classification system, was the critical accomplishment because it promised to unify diverse national soil science communities in a single discipline. The rigorously empirical descriptions of soil categories reveal the interplay of the cosmopolitan values of scientific internationalism with the nationalist tensions of the Cold War and decolonization.... view less
Keywords
science; internationalism; land; historical development; FAO; UNESCO; cooperation; cartography
Classification
General History
Natural Science and Engineering, Applied Sciences
Free Keywords
Soil Map of the World; UN Food and Agriculture Organization; collective empiricism; classification
Document language
English
Publication Year
2015
Page/Pages
p. 174-201
Journal
Historical Social Research, 40 (2015) 2
Issue topic
Climate and beyond: knowledge production about the earth as a signpost of social change
DOI
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.174-201
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed