Dogs and plants as mediators for human-soil relations:

exploring soil awareness from greening to gardening in Berlin

Abstract

„The ethic and practice of attentiveness is key to the ethic and practice of care”, states Anna Krzywoszynska, an environmental social scientist researching the relationship between humans and soils in rural contexts. For urban settings, however, a lack of soil awareness as identified by soil scientists and STS scholars seems to contrast with residents’ manifold practices of care for more-than-human matters, entities and species that are dependent on soil. This contribution draws on interviews with community gardeners and residents in two Berlin neighbourhoods – Neukölln and Mitte – where soils have figured either in the context of planting and cultivating, or in the context of soil unsealing and green infrastructure projects. From our research, we suggest that the study of certain mediators amidst the human-soil relationship – in our case dogs and plants – provides new insights into the entanglements of soil awareness, attentiveness, and care in urban settings.