Finding Common Ground: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Soil

This two-day symposium is part of a series of events exploring current soil-focussed research from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Previous events have brought together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, encouraging attendees to share their research on the topic of soil, identifying areas of synergy and forging connections to allow for future collaboration.

The Finding Common Ground symposium continues this work, and has four key aims:

1. Offer soil researchers the opportunity to network with a view to forging future collaborations;
2. Offer soil researchers the opportunity to share their research with an international audience;
3. Introduce researchers to new perspectives on soil that enrich their own practice;
4. Demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary working in environmental research.

We also hope that this event will lay the foundations for an interdisciplinary soil network that enables conversations on soil across disciplines.

Our confirmed Keynote speaker has experience undertaking interdisciplinary research in soil:

• Dr Jim Scown (School of English, Exeter)
• 2nd Keynote speaker to be confirmed

The programme for the symposium is still being compiled, and will include short 20 min papers from 12 soil researchers: Science, English Literature, History, Archaeology, creative practitioners, and more.

You can find the draft programme for both days at the bottom of this page - please note that this is not yet finalised and subject to change. We are expecting to publish the final programme towards the end of February. The confirmed programme will be included here and on the Symposium webpage.

Call for posters

Poster submissions are still open until 27th February (no later than 5pm BST): delegates are encouraged to submit poster presentations to be displayed throughout the symposium. Please complete this form to submit your proposal.

Background

Soil is a part of our environment. It forms the ground that we walk on, although in an urban setting, soil is rarely left exposed: it is covered with paving stones to form paths, or seeded with grass and confined to flower beds in a city park. As such, soil is our foundation, but it is also often forgotten. We tend to leave it beneath our feet, without thinking much about it until the path gets muddy. Then, our shoes become undesirably encased in mud: it gets in the ridges of our shoes, dirties the carpet, before it is vacuumed up and disposed of. Soil is base: it is at the bottom quite literally (on the ground) but also figuratively (something dirty, to be removed).

It is also base in the sense that it is foundational: it is out of soil that all plant matter grows, including the food we eat. Without our base of soil, neither the human nor the more-than-human would survive. It is little wonder that the earth has long been conceptualised as ‘mother’ across the globe. And in the face of developing climate catastrophe, soil will become more vital than ever: the UK’s soil association has suggested that ‘without healthy soils, we can’t tackle the climate crisis’.

As with previous events and with the intention of our network in mind, this symposium aims to bring together researchers from across disciplines working broadly on the subject of soil. We hope to create productive contact zones between different areas of research that will allow for fruitful discussions and potential collaboration.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact the organisers: Meg Meredith (mbp05mel@sheffield.ac.uk) and Emily Naish (ejnaish1@sheffield.ac.uk).