SSSA 09 Poster: 7 Dimensions of Soil in Movies

Here's a link to the poster I shared in Pittsburgh in November at the joint meetings of the "Trisocieties" (Soil Science Society of America, Agronomy Soc. of Amer. and Crop Science Soc. America). It was turning out to be a little tricky to circulate the poster to the various people who wanted a copy, given some random filesize issues on one end and the other. But with my brand new "Dropbox" (a file-syncing and -sharing utility), the link below should download for anyone. One thing to note is that this is only a brief summary of part of my dissertation in progress, so it's far from my 'final word' on the subject.

Many people shared their comments and suggestions at the meetings, and switching up to a blog leaves things wide open for more. I am always eager to hear people's thoughts on the meanings of soil in film and culture. Suggestions of any movies not on this list that include soil (and mud, sand, dust, dirt, clay, etc.) are especially welcome.

5 mb file: Pine_7DimenSoilMovies_SSSA09.pdf

web version (lower quality):

The abstract (from the very excellent ACS conference site):

Seven Dimensions of Soil: Understanding and Teaching Human-Soil Relations in Movies.

Claudia Hemphill Pine
ABD, Environmental Science
University of Idaho, Moscow ID USA

Human interactions with soil produce not only the basic materials of food and shelter, but also strong values like a sense of home or “place.” One source for understanding how these symbolic and cognitive values connect across social and material dimensions is film. Movies are the world's most widespread form of communication, a medium of education as well as entertainment, with a powerful visual and narrative impact.

The influence of film on public perceptions of nature was evident by the 1930s with masterworks like The Plow That Broke The Plains. Only recently, however, have interdisciplinary fields like Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Ecocriticism, and Environmental Humanities studied how film reflects and shapes cultural attitudes toward the environment. These fields began with a focus on popular, aesthetic, and recreational themes like wilderness, rainforest and eye-catching animals. Soil is too often ignored, treated as the romantic symbol of traditional farming, or even cast as a “dirty” part of the environment. These urban and western biases overlook the foundational role of soil in the historical human understanding of nature and its meanings. I address this gap through semiotic analysis of more than 60 US and international films, which identifies seven human dimensions of soil meaning: Home, Identity, Power, Risk, Social Others, Security/Stability, and Alterity. Comparative analysis shows cross-cultural differences and chronological change.

The study highlights specific strengths of film for research, outreach and teaching. Film, as a cultural text, represents soil meanings that environmental science and policy may fail to see. The analysis also indicates how the physical complexities of soil have generated both positive and negative human attitudes towards it. Understanding the full range of cultural meanings of soil can aid in classroom teaching, and support the discussions of soil conservation and sustainability that are critical for society today.

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Soil goes to the movies - or at least, my poster comes to the net

I've been having trouble sending this file out through my university servers, even though it's only 5 MB. So, a new solution: post it online. Or rather, link it to a blog through Dropbox, the nifty little utility that lets you put your files online to sync them across computers - or share them.

It's that latter function that I hope will work out here. Plus, there are other advantages to doing it this way.

Since many of my conference presentations are big powerpoint or poster files, linking to them from a blog will much like putting them on a personal website. Only free, and much easier. My university stopped offering web hosting (even while raising our student IT fees, alas), so if I wanted a website, I'd have to either pay for it, or use a free one that's plastered with ads. Why bother, when I can just start a new blog?

Secondly, since blogger layouts are pre-packaged, there's far less time and work involved than with a website. Normally, I would use the journaling sites that I'm already on - Dreamwidth, especially - but since I'm on a couple of blogger.com blogs already, I'll try out this medium first.

Last and best, since blogs are designed for commenting, I can talk about the research I upload here. Feedback from others is the only reward for my work. (Although a job offer would be awesome too!) Since the goal of any research is to stimulate conversation about the topic, I do hope people continue offering me suggestions and ideas on the work I post.