The Politics of International Soil Science in the Early 20th Century

这个跨学科的项目探索了20世纪上半叶国际土壤科学和政治之间尚未发现的联系，并提供了对该主题的第一次系统调查。国际土壤科学学会(ISSS)将在2024年迎来其百年诞辰，这对该项目具有特殊的意义，也使了解土壤的过程在应对当今全球环境危机方面日益重要。该项目将研究土壤科学国际化的历史，将其作为一个内在的地理和政治过程，特别关注国际土壤科学研究所、第一次国际土壤科学会议和土壤科学家机构的历史。它将审查当代出版的资料和档案材料，结合文化和历史地理学、科学史和环境史的方法。通过这样做，它的目的是审查国际上接受的土壤调查和测绘方法的翻译和流通，突出国家科学议程和农业发展项目如何深深植根于殖民和国家建设政治。该项目旨在反思这样一种矛盾的情况，即据称建立在对土壤的非政治性科学理解基础上的土壤科学的国际化，恰逢欧洲和全球政治的深刻分歧，争夺土地，而且往往是土壤政治化。我的导师Michael Heffernan教授在地理学史和国际主义方面的专业知识，以及我自己在历史人类-环境相互作用和土壤科学方面的跨学科知识的独特结合，将为国际科学史、政治史和全球环境史的接口带来新的方法。完成这个项目也将为我在学术界成功和稳定的职业生涯提供一个发射台。

This interdisciplinary project explores undiscovered connections between international soil science and politics in the first part of the 20th century and offers the first systematic investigation of the topic. The International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) is reaching its hundred-year centenary in 2024, which gives a specific relevance to this project, as well as the raising importance of understanding processes of soils in coping with global environmental crises nowadays. The project will investigate the history of the internationalization of soil science as an inherently geographical and political process, with a specific focus on the history of ISSS, the first international soil science conferences, and the agency of soil scientists. It will examine contemporary published sources and archival materials, combining methods from cultural and historical geography, history of science and environmental history. By doing so, it aims to examine the translations and circulation of internationally accepted methods of the investigation and mapping of soils, highlighting how national scientific agendas and agricultural development projects were deeply embedded in colonial and statebuilding politics. The project aims to reflect on the paradoxical situation that the internationalization of soil science, which was purportedly built on an apolitical scientific understanding of soil, coincided with deep divisions of European and global politics, struggles for land and often, the politicization of soil. The unique combination of my mentor's, Prof. Michael Heffernan's expertise in history of geography and internationalism, and my own interdisciplinary knowledge in historical human-environment interactions and soil science will bring new approaches to the interface of the history of international science, politics and global environmental history. Completing this project will also provide me a launchpad to a successful and stable career in academia.