Speakers: Dr Noemi Ujhazy and Professor Mike Heffernan (Geography, University of Nottingham)
The case of soil mapping in Europe in the early 20th century can provide a historical insight into how science is practised under rising political pressure, autocracy and during war, which is unfortunately too relevant today. Soils, which have many layers of meanings as contested grounds for cultural attachment and habitation, at the turn of the 20th century became the object of a newly independent but still multidisciplinary scientific field— soil science. Internationalization of the understanding of soils and the quest for harmonizing methodologies started with a series of international conferences, and a prior goal of these meetings was to get consensus about the scientific mapping of soils and, as a result, create the collaborative soil map of Europe.
While this collaborative mapping project reflected the ideals of scientific internationalism, the actual soil surveys on which this map of Europe was based were funded by national institutions, embedded in overtly nationalist politics of agricultural development and state-building. The seminar will reflect on how these international ideals and national practices drifted apart with the escalation of political tensions towards WWII, and how soils—as bases of food production, human health and settlement—became a diplomatic matter of war and peace.
Biographies
Noémi Ujházy is a UK Guarantee Fellow at the School of Geography, University of Nottingham. Previously, she was based in Budapest, Hungary, doing PhD at the Eötvös Loránd University and then being affiliated to the Geographical Institute, HUN-REN CSFK. Her current postdoctoral project, approved by the MSCA and funded by the UKRA is about ‘The Politics of International Soil Science in the Early 20th Century’.
Mike Heffernan is Professor Emeritus of Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham, where he has taught and researched since 1999. He previously taught at Loughborough University and held visiting research fellowships at Heidelberg, UCLA, and Oxford. He is interested in the history of environmental and geographical thought and is currently Vice President of the British Academy.
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All welcome.