Ecological Belongings. Transforming soil cultures through science, activism and art.

当我们在土壤上行走时，土壤很容易被忽视，但它们是地球上大多数生命赖以生存的重要基础设施。今天，由于我们滥用土壤作为一种“资源”而引发的全球土壤危机使人们对这一隐藏的景观元素产生了新的关注。在这方面，人地关系正在发生变化。这项研究集中在工业化社会英国的这些转变的文化方面，作为一个案例研究，以了解新的生态文化是如何形成的，以应对与非人类自然的关系危机。传统上，对农业赖以生存的土壤的依赖使它们在文化上被视为人类属于地方、土地、领土和国家的象征。工业化、城市化和全球化削弱了这些强大的文化联想。相比之下，该项目侧重于技术科学社会中新出现的土壤的文化意义，表明社会和文化日益关注人类的参与和对自然界生态功能的依赖。该项目将寻求了解在科学、活动和艺术实践中发展的土壤文化在多大程度上产生了依赖于环境考虑并使文化生态化的属于自然的材料、情感和美学的新形式。在第一阶段，研究将通过调查土壤周围当前叙述的材料、情感和美学维度，从经验和概念上探索土壤文化。该方法将包括实地考察、访谈和收集三个实践领域的文字和视觉材料，这三个领域是引领人地关系变化的领域：土壤科学、土壤护理活动家教育和土壤艺术。这些方法将围绕三个问题展开在这三个领域的研究：1.土壤的物质意义是什么？这个问题探讨了归因于土壤的物质属性如何在文化上转化，例如，通过观察科学家如何使用隐喻将科学转化为公众，土壤活动家如何在种植者社区促进最佳土壤护理实践，以及艺术家如何表现土壤的物质质量。2.土壤的情感意义是什么？这个问题的重点是探索与土壤的关系，作为科学家、活动家和艺术家情感和情感的焦点，以了解在新兴的生态文化中对土壤的新的依附形式。土壤的美学意义是什么？这个问题探索对土壤的感官感知和欣赏，以了解土壤的表现是如何变化的。它着重于视觉文化主导的影响，特别是对土壤的新的科学成像，以及超越土壤与农业和乡村景观的审美认同的新的表现。在第二阶段，该项目将制定干预措施，旨在创建一个由研究人员、活动家和艺术家组成的跨学科网络，致力于通过新的社会和文化理解来改善人与土壤的关系。这将包括一系列准学术聚会、知识交流和面向公众参与的活动，积极发展所研究领域与非学术公众之间的联系。这些活动的最初成果将是以故事和视觉插图的形式集体和创造性地产生新的叙述，说明与土壤的新的生态关系，并以半学术形式出版供廉价公共传播的扇子。总而言之，这项研究将导致：对当代与土壤的关系进行新的文化理解，为新兴生态文化的研究带来新的见解，建立跨学科研究和倡导人与土壤关系的领域，以及提高公众对土壤的文化和生态意义的认识的新叙事。

Soils are easy to neglect as we walk upon them, yet they are a vital infrastructure on which most life on earth depends. Today, a global soil crisis due to our abuse of soils as a "resource" is bringing new attention to this hidden element of landscapes. In this context human-soil relations are changing. This research focuses on the cultural aspects of these transformations in an industrialised society, the UK, as a case study for understanding how new ecological cultures are shaping in response to a crisis of relations with non-human nature. Traditionally, the dependency on soils for agricultural subsistence situates them culturally as emblematic of human belonging to place, land, territory and nation. These strong cultural associations have been weakened by industrialisation, urbanisation, and globalisation. In contrast, this project focuses on emerging cultural significations of soils in technoscientific societies that are indicative of increasing social and cultural concerns for human participation and dependency on the ecological functioning of the natural world. The project will seek to understand to what extent soil cultures developing in scientific, activist and artistic practices generate new forms of material, affective and aesthetic belonging to nature that rely on environmental considerations and are making cultures ecological.In a first phase, research will explore soil cultures empirically and conceptually by investigating material, affective and aesthetic dimensions of current narratives around the soil. The methodology will consist of fieldwork, interviews and collection of textual and visual materials in three fields of practice that are leading change in human-soil relations: soil science, soil-care activist education, and soil art. These methods will be deployed in these three fields along three research questions:1. What is the material significance of soil? This question explores how material properties attributed to the soil translate culturally for instance by looking at how scientists use of metaphor to translate science to publics, how soil activist educators promote best soil care practices in grower communities, and how artists represent soil's material qualities. 2. What is the affective significance of soils? This question focuses on exploring relations with soils as a focus of emotions and sentiments of scientists, activists and artists in order to understand new forms of attachment to soils in emergent ecological cultures.3. What is the aesthetic significance of soils? This question explores the sensorial perception and appreciation of soils in order to understand how representations of soils are changing. It focuses on the influence of dominance of visual culture, in particular new scientific imaging of soils, and new representations that go beyond soil's aesthetic identification with farming and rural landscape. In a second phase the project will develop interventions aimed at creating a transdisciplinary network of researchers, activists and artists dedicated to improve human-soil relations through new social and cultural understandings. This will include a mix of para-academic gatherings, knowledge exchange and public engagement-oriented activities actively developing connections between the fields studied and non-academic publics. An original outcome of these activities will be to collectively and creatively generate new narratives in the form of stories and visual illustrations accounting of new ecological relations with the soil and para-academic publishing of fanzines for inexpensive public dissemination. In sum, the research will result in: a new cultural understanding of contemporary relations with soil that brings new insights into the study of emerging ecological cultures, the establishment of a field of transdisciplinary study and advocacy of human-soil relations, and new narratives to improve public awareness of soil's cultural and ecological significance.