Paper short abstract:

In this concluding presentation, we reflect on the boundaries of what we choose to call "soil", what allies we choose to work with, and the associated theoretical and political implications.

Paper long abstract:

Many new perspectives on soils within the humanities and STS have developed over the past ten years, building on earlier work in political ecology and seeking to think with soils beyond the human, both in their dangerous and restorative character. Contemporary work on soil-human relations brings together pre-existing approaches - such as multispecies ethnography, metabolic, microbial, feminist STS, new materialist or geosocial approaches - just as much as it displaces them and reconfigures the issues at stake. Along the way, new ideas of what politics is have emerged, whether viewed from a multispecies, strata, or metabolic angle.

In this concluding presentation, we would like to reflect on how the multiple nature of soils invites us to think about the boundaries of what we choose to call "soil", what allies we choose to work with, and the theoretical and political implications of the framings we adopt. One common option in the soil humanities and social sciences has been to draw inspiration from ecological and radically relational perspectives allowed by certain branches of soil science. In order to resist reductionism, and taking soil into account beyond productivity or functionality, some scholars have also turned to Indigenous or alternative soil practitioners' perspectives.

Building on our respective fieldwork in progress, which articulate and confront the perspectives of soil sciences, community gardeners, soil activists and Indigenous farmers, we ask how different onto-epistemologies of soil compel us to do research differently, and what arts of attention are required and enabled by them.