VISCERAL ECOLOGIES IN THE BORDERLAND: SOILS AND CARE FROM OLIVE TREES' HECATOMB IN SALENTO.

This contribution focuses on soils and care as fundamental matters of inquiry, in order to retrace the processes determining the resurging possibilities of Salento's landscape. The South-East Italian territory is plagued by an epidemic of Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterium which has killed hundreds of thousands of olive-trees. We untangle the ecology of the olive trees' depletion, taking into consideration the most recent scientific research on the main vector of the bacteria, the little spittlebug Philaenus spumarius. We describe the quality of these relationships that entangle multispecies assemblies as 'visceral ecology' and explore it by interlacing the vector's ecology and the dying olive trees with a local oil miller's intestinal disease. Framing the soil of Salento as an 'open air intestine' allows us to merge materialist views and practices of care with the ecosystem's transformations. In conclusion, we argue for the interconnectedness of materialism and care in shaping both the imaginary and the material conditions for future local human-landscape relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]