Chemical and Organic Fertilizers in the Agricultural Practices of Siberians: Spatial and Multispecies Relationships

Abstract

The article examines the ways in which different types of fertilizers used in the agricultural practices of Tomsk’s dacha gardeners construct relationships between the urban and the dacha spaces. Based on interviews and mapping conducted in the Tomsk region in 2024–2025, as well as internet dacha forums, the study compares the infrastructures that emerge from the use of chemical and organic fertilizers. Drawing on multispecies ethnography and the logic of the ontological turn, we show that chemical fertilizers act as agents of spatial demarcation, requiring isolated and clearly marked storage zones and positioning humans as external users who seek to control the lives of other living beings, which often escape control. Organic fertilizers, by contrast, create hybrid spaces: the city apartment becomes a site for accumulating waste for future fertilizers, while practices such as vermicomposting or maintaining a compost heap, a “zaparnik” or a “brodilovka” involve humans in complex multispecies assemblages. The analysis demonstrates that fertilizing practices are not only agronomic techniques but also ways of producing different spatial configurations, social relations, and modes of coexistence with non-human actors.