Soil Politics - Detailseite

From philosophies of care for the liveliness of soils, to soil as a subject and symbolic medium of artistic exploration, soils are significant vehicles of social-ecological transformation, cultural expression and political contestation. While the health of soils, and by extension that of a land and its people, is a fundamental concern for a progressive politics concerned for social solidarity and environmental justice, beliefs and practices that aim to foster soil fertility and community cohesion are also found within nationalist ideologies. Furthermore, a decolonial ecological approach to human-soil relations asks 'how the distinctive materiality of the ground beneath our feet interacts with social institutions and cultural imaginaries’ (Davidson et al, 2024). In this seminar we will consider together how soils come to matter.