Dr Anna Krzywoszynska

Visiting Scholar, November - December 2024

Dr Krzywoszynska is a tenure-track Associate Professor in Transdisciplinary Human-Environment Relations at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oulu, Finland. She is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist with a background in human geography and science and technology studies.

Dr Krzywoszynska’s overarching research interest is in investigating and transforming knowledge-cultures in different settings in order to strengthen sustainable and just relationships between humans and their environments. The Anthropocene zeitgeist, in which both the power and the vulnerability of human societies becomes ever more pronounced, calls for new approaches to environmental knowledge-making and action, approaches which are more situated, humble, and iterative, and which dissolve the established fact/value binary.

In line with this, Dr Krzywoszynska’s research projects have investigated the politics and ethics of agri-environmental knowledge, especially in relation to soils and soil microbes. Her co-edited book Thinking with Soils, and the co-led special issue on soils in the Environmental Humanities journal set the scene for the dynamically growing area of soil humanit

ies. Her other work has also examined the politics of alternative food systems, such as organic production, local food networks, and, most recently, regenerative agriculture. She has also investigated a variety of public-science interfaces/relationalities, including systemic science-policy approaches such as nexus thinking, interactions between farmers and other expert groups, as well as the mechanisms for effective and socially just public participation in science. This work has led to a number of publications in the fields of science and technology studies, environmental humanities, and human geography, and received funding from the UKRI, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Kone Foundation (Finland), amongst others.

Dr Krzywoszynska’s academic work and practice are deeply interdisciplinary. At the University of Oulu, she leads one of the streams of the Biodiverse Anthropocenes programme, as well as leading the Lively Lab research group. She acts as a member of the Advisory Board for the Horizon Europe Mission Soil Deal for Europe, and she is a co-lead of one of the Commissions of the International Union of Soil Science. She is also the founder and lead of the Soil Care Network.

While at Durham, Dr Krzywoszynska will collaborate with Professor Karen Johnson and Professor Petra Minnerop on the project Soil and Law: “A nation that rebuilds its soil rebuilds itself”, which in addition to research and collaborative activities will include events related to the World Soils Day on 05 December 2024.

Events

IAS Seminar – 09 December 2024 – 1.00 – 2.00pm. IAS Seminar Room, Cosin’s Hall, Institute of Advanced Study
Coming down to … place: the potential of ‘place’ as a guiding concept for (post)Anthropocene research
Registration is essential. Details here.

IAS Public Lecture – 28 November 2024 – 5.00 – 6.00pm, St Cuthbert's Society, Durham University
Why Soils, why now?
Further information here.