Soil Music and Regenerative Futures: A Transdisciplinary Paradigm for Ecological Imaginaries and Multispecies Flourishing

Abstract

Amidst the intensifying global crises, there is an urgent need for approaches that can foster imaginaries of positive futures. Drawing on the concept of an ethics of possibility, musical-artistic practices can serve as a catalyst for societal transformation by creating positive imaginaries that acknowledge and foster a consciously balanced interdependence within our ecosystems. The paper emphasizes the need for transdisciplinary, rebellious research approaches to enhance ecological imagineries. A Soil Music Paradigm is introduced, interconnecting regenerative ecology and musical practices. This paradigm is grounded in the principle of regeneration, aiming to build life-supporting resources through active engagement. The paper argues for an immersive, appreciative ecological inquiry as an approach to enhance future artistic as well as educational settings. By bridging disciplinary boundaries and embracing open processes, this research offers perspectives on the transformative power of soil music to raise awareness, alter current toxic trajectories, and create ecological imaginaries.

Introduction

Standing at the crossroads of multiple crises, we are compelled to ask: Can we still dare to imagine positive futures? The turbulence of our era finds its roots not merely in flawed systems, but in a collective failure of imagination (Earth.org, 2025). Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely this capacity to envision alternatives that has propelled humanity forward. By cultivating our imaginative force we can reimagine new ways to live in tune with the greater ecosystem. However, the challenges are tremendous. As of 2025, the world faces an unprecedented nexus of global crises, with ecological challenges at the forefront. Climate change continues to accelerate, with 2024 confirmed as the hottest year in recorded history, surpassing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (Earth.org, 2025). This warming trend exacerbates other environmental issues, including biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and food and water insecurity (Earth.org, 2025, IPBES, 2018). Concurrently and unfortunately, social divides are widening, as exemplified by the rise of the radical right. Thus, due to a lack of societal acceptance and undermining of constructive initiatives, a sufficient global agreement on climate policy measures is not in sight in the current situation (Green, 2024). Above all, the crises are deeply intertwined, with climate change and biodiversity loss creating a vicious cycle that threatens social cohesion and global stability further (International Fund for Animal Welfare, 2025): Through interconnected plunder, our societal system devours the very conditions of its possibility (Fraser, 2022).

All of this creates a bleak scenario making it almost impossible to believe that positive futures are possible. Many researchers recognize that the time has come to critically reconsider own practices and research trajectories (S. Schmid, 2024a, in press a; Hüttel & Hess, 2024). Planetary challenges are currently reflected in music education research (Barrett & Westerlund, 2024; Eusterbrock et al., 2024; S. Schmid, in press b). We are witnessing a rising call for future-making (Buchborn et al., 2022). However, facing the current great unraveling (Post Carbon Institute, 2023) which alerts us to possible ecological break-down, writing about transformation may not suffice (S. Schmid, in press a, in press b). The challenge for academia is to examine our traditional modes of knowledge production, and proactively establish new approaches to advance this endeavor. Given the limited time to address urgent challenges, how can research become a practice of care and relationality, fostering pluralistic approaches that reveal possibilities beyond the dominant frameworks of modernity (Facer, 2023)? Addressing ecological crises in innovative ways—by critically engaging with both people’s and our own perceptions of nature connectedness (Christens et al., 2025, p. 1)—and exploring possibilities for planetary regeneration may be essential components of this undertaking. After all, our current human ways of being alive (Morizot, 2022) tend to treat nonhuman life as mere resources: in Morizot’s view, the ecological crisis is rooted, in part, in a crisis of sensibility, a rupture in how we relate to other forms of life (p. 4).

In this vein, ecological imaginaries are the shared ways in which people conceptualize relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. As Pearson (2025) notes, in sustainability studies, there is growing recognition of the importance of “imagination, meaning-making, and culture” (n.p.), leading to calls for an artistic turn. Pearson argues that creative and arts-based methods enable us to envision alternative futures as such approaches can activate change through emotional, symbolic, and experiential engagement (Galafassi et al., 2018). Research that takes this route, exploring how the imbrication of different spheres such as musical and (agri)cultural practices could shape, inspire, and expand ecological imaginaries, have only begun to be explored (S. Schmid & R. Schmid, 2025).

The central claim of the paper is that soil can function not only as a biophysical substrate of carbon regulation and food production, but also as a medium for artistic, affective, and epistemic engagement that reshapes how people imagine ecological relations. We propose to work with soil acoustically to make processes such as carbon cycling, soil degradation, and regeneration experientially accessible. This approach is presented as valid because it complements existing scientific and policy framings with sensory and participatory modes of knowing underrepresented in the literature on ecological imaginaries (Glăveanu et al., 2025).

Against this backdrop, this paper examines how a researcher and a musician, by simultaneously shifting their respective practices and attention toward the existential ecological concern of soil health, create an intersection of musical-artistic and scholarly inquiry. This collaborative, practice-based acknowledgment of ecological foundations serves as a catalyst for new insights in fostering regenerative futures. With the aim to foster ecological imagineries beyond disciplinary silos, the paper focuses on the notion of regenerative musical practices informed by (agri)culture as artivism: activism through art that provokes social transformation (Aladro-Vico et al., 2018) toward multispecies flourishing.

Drawing on the professional backgrounds of the two authors—a music education researcher and a performing musician—this paper thus poses the following questions: How can musical-artistic practices contribute to the endeavor to envision regenerative futures in harmony with the wider ecosystem? What specific imagineries can we translate into action to bridge the gap between academic research paradigms and experiential phenomena that others can relate to, for example, in education? As a way to engage with these questions and provide an introductory background, we infuse our thinking with an explorative transdisciplinarity, interrelating it with musical-artistic practices.

Explorative Transdisciplinarity as ArtivistRe-Search

A significant reason why an explorative transdisciplinary approach is important lies in its ability to integrate creative arts into research contexts, where researchers engage in art-making as a way of knowing (Leavy, 2018, p. 4), looking for ways to re-search the very processes and possibilities through which ecological understanding may emerge.

Yet, such transdisciplinarity is a challenge: the intersection of each expansive discipline produces knowledge and synergies that exist in spaces not fully defined by either art or research (Birsel et al., 2023, p. 110). Moreover, it is still not common sense “to go beyond the world (…) ‘as it is’ and enrich it with imaginations of how it ‘can and should be’” (Glăveanu, 2023a, p. 7). Hence, Burnard et al. (2022) have called for Doing rebellious research (Burnard et al., 2022) or even Eruptive Research (Burnard & Mackinlay, 2025). Many of them applying a posthuman approach, the authors of these edited volumes proclaim disruptive practices of making-with (Haraway, 2016), in exploratory, that is, not yet thoroughly defined practices. Burnard et al. (2022) underline the need for new pairings of subject disciplines (p. 28). Current examples of explorative transdisciplinarity are underway in projects like Co-CreART. Co-Creating Change! (Anzengruber, 2024), intertwining artistic-creative and scientific approaches in a mobile learning laboratory or EcoLit (Walther, 2025) that generates autoethnographic reflections about multispecies conviviality in musical storytelling. Previous approaches interlink empirical research with concepts like permaculture to envision future school settings as immersive, ecological educational environments (S. Schmid & Doerne, 2020). Another project utilized participatory action research alongside arts-based workshops, such as stop-motion video or sculpture to collaboratively envision climate-social utopias with civil society groups, translating climate concerns into tangible ideas (Anders et al., 2024). More initiatives of this kind are needed to probe the foundations of posthuman entanglement and to critically examine our own practices as researchers, artists, and educators—transforming ourselves in tandem with the changes we seek to inspire in the world (Glăveanu, 2023b, p. 437).

The Project

This project grapples with a central challenge: in an immense world, where and how do we start to effect change? Where is our lever?

An existential starting point is the very ground beneath our feet. So far, soil degradation is accelerating, posing serious risks to human health and survival. The loss of soil function not only jeopardizes agricultural productivity but also leads to increased vulnerability to climate extremes and biodiversity loss (De Gama, 2023). This cascading effect directly threatens human nutrition, health, and socio-economic stability: We as humans are literally losing ground—also in a metaphorical sense as through an overproductive modus operandi, we become increasingly disconnected from the land, eachother and ourselves. Therefore, raising soil awareness is critical. Departing from sound-art practices, Maeder (2023) investigated ecoacoustic dynamics within soil ecosystems and rendered them accessible to audiences beyond the scientific community. Findings suggested that variations in both the complexity and the acoustic profiles of these soundscapes can provide valuable insights into the diversity and structure of soil animal communities (p. 33). These significant findings underscore the value of engaging with soil in this manner.

Hence, the Soil Music project focuses the experience of soil as a resonating, living, multispecies commons—rich in sounding aliveness and tangible relationality. The project thus engages with the profound ecological and cultural significance of soil by prompting an imaginative journey. We develop a tentative Soil Music Paradigm as a means to alter our own practices, tap into new forms of knowledge production, and ultimately inspire new perspectives on how individual expertise can become fruitful in intertwining research, art, and activism (Fremaux & Jordan, 2022) as an insightful form of artivism (Aladro-Vico et al., 2018).

As a music education researcher and a performing musician, we both depart from rather existential research questions for ourselves: How can artistic-musical practices become possibility spaces for ecological imaginaries where we live “in tune” with planetary and personal resources? ¹ How can we learn to resonate with the wider ecosystem, fostering perceptual augmentation and a new intimacy with more-than-human life (C. H. Smith, 2021)? The Soil Music project approaches these questions by turning towards tangible practices, grounding abstract theoretical considerations, by assembling compost, sensors, sound technologies, musical improvization, and reflective dialogue in a resonant exchange with soil into a single research-creation process. The remainder of the paper first elaborates its theoretical lens—(a) the background of the ethics of possibility, (b) the foreground of a regenerative paradigm, and the role of musical-artistic practices as catalysts for creating ecological imaginaries. In a second step, the article delves into the subground of a Soil Music Paradigm, thus offering insights into the methods and assemblage-like outcomes of an exploratory journey. The conclusion provides implications for future research and highlights the potential of musical-artistic practices in shaping positive futures.

Background and Foreground: Theoretical Framework

To address our primary questions, we embed an ethics of possibility in our transdisciplinary inquiry by focusing on (a) regenerative possibility thinking and (b) musical-artistic practices as catalysts for ecological imaginaries—specifically, exploring radical regenerative possibilities through musical-artistic work with soil. Here, the ethics of possibility, regenerative ecology and artistic practice are interwoven dimensions of a single question: how can music-based, artivist soil practices become possibility spaces for ecological imaginaries?

Background: Radically Regenerative Possibilities and Music

The ethics of possibility, as explored by Glăveanu (2023a, p. 6), emphasizes imagining and enacting possibilities as relational, challenging individualistic, mind-centered views (Glăveanu, 2023a, p. 6). This inclusive and decolonized perspective highlights dialogue and advocates for reimagining futures (Glăveanu, 2023b, p. 15). As possibilities arise from the interaction between agents and their environments, we should focus on actionable spaces where imagination meets practice (Glăveanu et al., 2025, p. 400). This ethical framework inspires transformative thinking (Glăveanu, 2023a, p. 7) and thus aligns well with the paper’s focus on ecological imagineries. This is even more the case given that art plays a central role as a catalyst for new social imaginations (Vujanović & Cvejić, 2022), and fostering “the experience of the possible” (Glăveanu, 2023a, p. 8).

Particularly music has long served as a catalyst for societal change, stirring emotions, challenging norms, and inspiring action (Publicover et al., 2018). From protest songs to avantgarde, musicians have shaped public discourse on societal issues (Publicover et al., 2018) and have the potential to drive social change (Hess, 2019; S. Schmid, in press b). In music education, using socially aware strategies and repertoire encourages critical thinking and civic engagement (Allsup & Westerlund, 2012), preparing youth to build a convivial society. Musical explorations, understood as a form of possibility practice, could thus serve as—“an active constituent of the productive work that imaginaries do” (Davoudi & Machen, 2022, p. 203). Indeed, there is evidence that music can strengthen social bonds, amplify marginalized voices, and support both personal and communal forms of expression (Hess, 2019; Jorgensen, 2003; S. Schmid, 2024a), illustrating its potential as a transformative medium within these imaginative social processes. Therefore, this paper argues for its crucial role in fostering an ethics of possibility.

Our research aligns with Glăveanu’s call for an “ethics of possibility” by taking seriously the moral responsibility that comes with acting upon alternative futures. It also highlights the need to make space for creative exploration of the near future and to engage with next steps towards the possible (Copeland, 2023, p. 433), meeting the crisis of sensibility with a shift “towards the possible sensations within and around us” (Verger, 2025, p. 2). Our approach moves beyond theory by embedding ethical deliberation at a specific agricultural site, using sensitizing artivism and aesthetic processes to foster empathy for a particular ecosystem. This provides a context-specific example of enacting an ethics of possibility within transdisciplinary ecological research. Grounded in this ethical framework and the interplay of musical and agricultural practices—seen as possibility play that pushes the boundaries of “interactions among people, place, and possibility” (Ross et al., 2023, p. 402)—the concept of Radically Regenerative Possibilities takes center stage. This concept emphasizes not only the possible, but also the radical, rooted in the foundations of life, and the regenerative, committed to actively restoring life-supporting systems. The term radical, derived from the Latin radix meaning root, underscores the importance of addressing challenges at their core. Regeneration, on the other hand, embodies a paradox: it involves simultaneously utilizing and replenishing resources, actively building systems that restore life while offering solutions to critical issues such as carbon sequestration, groundwater pollution, desertification, and biodiversity loss (De Gama, 2023). Aligning with possibility thinking, regenerative theorists emphasize the significance of engaging in the realm of what they call “potential thinking” (Cardozo et al., 2024, p. 17), which unfolds system evolution.

Together, these concepts inspire a transformative framework for new possibilities and rethinking our interactions with the world—one that seeks not only to mitigate harm but to actively restore the foundations of life. Focusing regenerative possibilities involves “manifesting lively images of whole living systems’ innate potential” (Cardozo et al., 2024, p. 10). By foregrounding a regenerative approach, the Soil Music project illuminates the potential of living systems within soil, exploring how their vitality resonates with our collective pursuit of an ethics rooted in possibility. Embracing possibility spaces as venues for exploring “new roles, scenarios and ideas” (Glăveanu, 2023b, p. 440)—we treat the Soil Music project itself as such a space in which these regenerative logics are enacted. But what specific practices are implied by this?

Foreground: Musical-Artistic Practices and Ecological Imaginaries

Against the background of an ethics of possibility, the role of the arts and radically regenerative possibilities arising from that, we argue that musical-artistic practices serve as valuable mirrors for (self-)knowledge and as mediums for testing alternative ways of knowing. Ultimately, these practices may help cultivating ecological imaginaries transforming the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world. Vujanović and Cvejić (2022) reimagine the relationship between the individual and the collective, suggesting that new courses of action can emerge when individuals perceive themselves as part of a larger ecological network. Not accidentally drawing on the agricultural metaphor of a seed, they illustrate how transformation is inherently relational: a seed not only absorbs nutrients from the soil to grow into a plant but also modifies the soil and impacts broader systems like the atmosphere in return (pp. 188–189, S. Schmid, in press b). This relational dynamic, rooted in the metaphor of soil, serves as a foundation for reimagining imaginaries—those pre-reflexive frameworks that shape how individuals and societies conceptualize their existence, and which, until now, have largely perpetuated individualized and anthropocentric logics (Steger & James, 2013). In this shift, musical-artistic practices exploring soil sounds serve as dynamic mediums for engaging with the complexities of socio-environmental systems to establish a sense of wonder and more-than-human co-creativity (S. Schmid, in press b; Shevock, 2018; T. Smith, 2021). By merging these ideas, ecological imaginaries are defined as socially embedded frameworks that integrate relational perspectives to envision ecological futures where individuals and collectives co-create planetary health. To achieve this, the research explores radical regenerative practices, emphasizing the importance of understanding non-human species beyond extractive logics. Following T. Smith (2021), listening to more-than-human natures is valued for its capacity to evoke wonder and enchantment, offering glimpses of interconnectedness that, in turn, support the emergence of ecological imaginaries aligned with regenerative futures.

Building on this, the Soil Music project treats musical exploration as a possibility practice: by co-creatively repositioning ourselves into the context of an agricultural farm site, delving into compost processes, rehearsing different relations to more-than-human life, and linking planetary regeneration with personal wellbeing (Martins, 2024), we aim to alter our own forms of knowledge production.

Subground: The Soil Music Paradigm

Aligning research practices with the perspective of future-making entails overcoming path dependencies and look beyond—or literally below—our habitual viewpoints to attend to what is taken for granted. So, we turn our attention below ground: the very soil beneath our feet (Illich, 1990). Soil regeneration is a critical strategy in addressing the climate crisis, particularly through its ability to enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration, which helps reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels. Increasing soil regeneration by even a small percentage can significantly offset global carbon emissions, effectively limiting global warming (Uphoff & Thies, 2023). Regenerative agricultural practices play a key role in this process by supporting microbial activity that stabilizes carbon in the soil and improving soil structure and fertility. Beyond mitigating emissions, regenerative practices improve water retention in soils and increase resilience to extreme weather events by fostering healthy ecosystems that support nutrient cycling and plant-microbe interactions. However, progressive urbanization of our lifestyles and ongoing soil sealing are causing a continuous decline in direct contact with natural soil surfaces. Perception studies further show that soils are frequently associated with negative attitudes—seen as uninteresting, lifeless, and often reduced to the notion of “dirt” (Kucharzyk, 2022).

Recognizing soil regeneration’s role in climate mitigation, we propose that soil serves as both a material and symbolic foundation for exploring sustainability through interdisciplinary collaboration (Toland et al., 2019). By engaging with soil’s physical properties, cultural histories, and environmental functions, artists and scientists alike can foster dialogue that transcends disciplinary boundaries. This approach emphasizes dimensions of soil as a basis for connection and imagination, inspiring regenerative practices that artistically address pressing challenges (Toland et al., 2019).

Soil Music Paradigm: Music Is Our Soil.Soil Is Our Music

In the Soil Music Paradigm, soil serves as a profound reference point, offering a unique lens to address ecological challenges and planetary livelihood (Fremantle, 2009). By engaging in co-creative interactions with the ground beneath our feet, soil opens up a world of possibilities for fostering eco-literacy (S. Schmid, 2023; Shevock, 2018). Affecting both sensual and metacognitive dimensions, eco-literacy entails a profound understanding of social-ecological systems and the ability to engage with messages from the ecosystem. This approach promotes experiential settings that cultivate mental frameworks guiding processes from utopia to topos—transforming abstract visions of regenerative futures into concrete realization of soil’s existential foundation.

Thus, the Soil Music project bridges the seemingly separate realms of soil and music. Soil is conceptualized as a physical resource and a metaphor for connection, trust, and envisioning positive futures. To advance our aim of contributing to positive ecological imaginaries, we identified a preliminary set of guiding principles. These were derived from (a) our prior research and foundational literature in the field and (b) a commitment to a practice-based framework that foregrounds artivist methodologies as catalysts for ecological change. Thus, the principles are theoretically informed, yet exploratory, propositions that emerged from a sustained interplay between:

• a) Existing theoretical frameworks (e.g., regenerative paradigms, eco-acoustics, environmental humanities); and

• b) Practical insights from the concrete soil music projects and collaborations (including reflections from workshops, performances, and fieldwork).

These are the seven principles which describe the Soil Music Paradigm (S. Schmid et al., 2024):

1. Regenerative focus: Emphasizes the simultaneous use and increase of resources to actively build life-supporting systems (Cardozo et al., 2024; Fantini van Ditmar & Toivonen, 2024).

2. Eco-literacy: Connects regenerative ecology with artistic practices to understand human culture’s impact on ecosystems (S. Schmid, 2023; Shevock, 2018).

3. Transformative music-making: Explores innovative methods of creating, learning, and presenting music that reflect the potential to contribute to the remediation of ecological degradation (Barrett & Westerlund, 2024; S. Schmid, in press b).

4. Holistic integration: Addresses intertwined challenges across political, psychological, and economic spheres through artistic expression (Galafassi et al., 2018; Vujanović & Cvejić, 2022).

5. Collaborative exchange: Promotes dialogical, equal, and resonant intra-action with the world, avoiding domination (Glăveanu, 2023a; Haraway, 2016; S. Schmid, in press b).

6. Ecosystemic perspective: Recognizes humans as part of interconnected ecosystems, fostering a sense of wonder (Haraway, 2016; S. Schmid, in press b; T. Smith, 2021).

7. Creative innovation: Encourages artistic, social, and ecological creativity to challenge the status quo and develop transformative ideas (Glăveanu, 2023b; Schmid & Schmid, 2025).

We ventilate regenerative ways of making, learning and presenting music that point towards a future in which we humans seek not only to sustain, but to reverse the damage we have done, that is, to regenerate the micro- and macroecosystems of the planet. Using radical regenerativity as an overarching principle, we challenge ourselves to refrain from dominating (nature, other people, an art, our instrument, or our bodies), and to enter into an equal, co-creative, listening, responsive and resonant exchange with the world around us and the world within us. For example, rather than imposing a fixed musical structure onto the soil or instruments, the project would invite the farm setting’s actors, soil’s textures and rhythms to shape the music. Instead of pushing for predetermined outcomes or dominating the creative process, the researchers cultivate responsive modes of engagement, prompting curiosity about their roles within ecosystems whose complexity surpasses full comprehension. Concomitantly, the Soil Music Paradigm wants to serve as a fruitful nutrient soil for musical-artistic, educational projects—potentially learning how to vitalize a regenerative musiotop for ecological imagineries. At present, the Soil Music principles are no distinct categories; nevertheless, they function as guiding principles throughout the project’s development.

Soilify: Musical Practices for Ecological Imagineries

Soil and musical practices, while seemingly distinct, are essential foundations of human life—soil sustains the body by enabling food production, while music participation enhances health and wellbeing (Viola et al., 2023). Both, soil and music are deeply tied to the concept of connection—soil sustains ecosystems and music enhances social cohesion. Many of these connections, however, often go unnoticed, as they operate through subtle mechanisms that anchor foundational relationships shaping both physical and social well-being beyond our immediate awareness. Additionally, both soil and music require trust in long-term processes, whether it is the gradual regeneration of land or the unfolding of musical creation over time. Finally, soil and music embody hope and imagination—the former as a regenerative for life, the latter activating the default mode network (DMN) involved in mind-wandering and innovative idea generation (Zaatar et al., 2023). Thus, both soil and music provide avenues for envisioning positive futures in which ecological balance and creative innovation thrive. Together, they form interconnected fields of reflection and action on how we engage with the world and inspire efforts to nurture both natural and cultural ecosystems.

Departing from and constantly revising the Soil Music Paradigm, we want to do justice to the fact that the status quo has become fragile, transformative imagineries must take the helm. Ecological imaginaries explicitly focused on regeneration denote shared visions of social-ecological futures in which human activity does not merely reduce harm but actively restores the vitality of ecosystems and communities. They are situated within the broader imaginaries literature on climate imaginaries (Davoudi & Machen, 2022) but place particular emphasis on co-evolution between human and more-than-human systems, drawing on place-based narratives (Fantini van Ditmar & Toivonen, 2024). The project situates the Soil Music Paradigm also in relation to existing work in eco-acoustic and sound-art practices (Bejtlich & Hankin, 2024) that translate ecological processes into listening experiences, while this project differs by focusing specifically on soil.

Methodology … On the Way?

The approach evolved gradually in a partnership of a researcher and an artist. Driven by the urgency of the matter, the search for answers went beyond representational logics “in which the human is superior to and separate from the material” (Lather & St. Pierre, 2013, p. 630). Instead, it was informed by posthuman inquiry—decisive moments of insight were driven by a post-qualitative perspective: acknowledging Barad’s (2007) concept of entanglement and Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) notion of assemblage, post-qualitative inquiry realizes that all researchers ever obtain, is “today’s story” (St. Pierre, 2014, p. 6). The story in which we were entangled in this project, revolved around the search for an appreciative way to encounter and illuminate non-human livelihoods while fruitfully exchanging our differing areas of expertise along the way.

Appreciative Ecological Inquiry (AEI)

Our approach was inspired by two methods from different fields, yet we adopted an exploratory, artistic, and playful mode rather than adhering to methodological rigor. One of the methods originates from health and social care settings: the method of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (e.g., Kervinen et al., 2024) focuses on identifying strengths within a system to inspire meaningful change (IRISS, 2017). By affirmative questioning, AI encourages fresh perspectives and supports transformational shifts (IRISS, 2017). To adapt AI for our researcher-musician collaboration, the process focused on identifying moments of particular resonance. We asked ourselves: What are our respective strengths as researcher or musician? Also, we focused knowledge-creation through researcher entanglement with the phenomenon of soil, shifting focus from representation to what the phenomenon becomes. By collaboratively exploring these positive cores through reflective dialogue, the researcher—whose practice typically involves reading, collecting/ analyzing data, and writing—and musician—who engages through performance—gained insights based on mutual understandings from different fields.

The second method enriching our journey, Collaborative Creative Inquiry (CCI), is an arts-informed research method emphasizing co-creation to foster inclusivity and challenge conventional narratives (Artem Research Collective, 2024). Through iterative processes of provoking, creating, and sharing, CCI facilitates collaborative, unconventional knowledge generation (Artem Research Collective, 2024). We adapted CCI for a partnership emphasizing co-creation through playful, arts-based, embodied practices such as storytelling, musical improvisation, and performance. This approach encouraged both collaborators to alternate our roles as creators and observers, fostering mutual learning and integrating an artivist focus. Driven by ecological crises and the need to enhance appreciative awareness of our ecosystem, we have named the method Appreciative Ecological Inquiry (AEI).

Thus, we embarked on a playful, yet urgent transdisciplinary research journey. Our primary objective was to expand our knowledge horizons, aiming to inspire others to do the same while creating tangible sensory access to soil which we consider essential for ensuring survival in the Anthropocene.

Immersion and Co-Creative Methods

The project originated in the Holistic Compost Lab (HCL, 2023), ² where methods for soils regeneration are tested. The inquiry started with Deep Listening as mindful auditory practice that transcends passive hearing by intentionally engaging with sounds—environmental, bodily, or imagined (Oliveros, 2005). Emphasizing this active awareness of acoustic environments, we employed audio field recording via contact microphones with probes, and iterative auditory and discursive analysis. After reflecting on post-human approaches and their significance for music education and composition, we immersed ourselves in participating in and documenting the composting process at the HCL while simultaneously engaging in extensive reading (St. Pierre, 2014, p. 20). Looking for a way to convey our insights, we used multiple data sources, combining audio recordings of soil sounds, artist reflections, and collaborators’ ³ feedback as research apparatus (Barad, 2007). We then experimented with music accompanying high-resolution films of the microorganisms in the soil (R. Schmid, 2025) and a sound story (S. Schmid, 2024b) to grasp how we could possibly attune to these non-human actors. We materialized the Soil Music Paradigm in different strands through

• Treating soil as sounding partner: using microphones and other interfaces to translate soil processes into sonic forms that people can feel, not just read about.

• Framing musical work as artivism: composing performances, installations, or participatory concerts that explicitly challenge extractive agriculture and advocate for regenerative practices and soil care.

• Aligning methods with artivist research: research questions, methods, and outputs are designed to support eco-social justice (e.g., collaborating with farmers, communities, and movements; performing in situated spaces like fields or farms).

• Using sound as ecological pedagogy: soil music pieces become tools for education—helping students sense interdependence of human-soil separation, and experiment with regenerative imaginaries.

On the way, we iteratively took many steps, challenging ourselves to: (1) question our respective expertise through post-human theories (2) immerse into the soil environment (3) make our respective expertise available to each other (4) relate experiences back to own expertise (5) create artefacts to process experiences (6) share these artefacts in a performative, transdisciplinary format (7) find ways to document the messy adventure. The strategies to make sure we integrated appropriate approaches adapted for this kind of re-search included:

1. Relational data assemblage: composting-like integration of multiple data sources for open-ended affective mapping: audio ecologies, journals, and peer-dialogues entangle to trace perceptual shifts without representational closure.

2. Reflexivity: Tracing the researcher’s positionality, intentions, and decision-making processes in research journals, acknowledging subjectivity openly.

Thus, the Soil Music Paradigm enables AEI to enact agential praxis (purposeful intra-actions recognizing distributed agency) for multispecies flourishing as regenerative ecological imaginaries.

Supraground: Assemblage Instead of Outcome

Looking above ground, again, the term supraground serves as an alternative label for research outcomes, highlighting them not as static conclusions but as emergent spaces of research assemblages comparable to Glăveanu et al.’s (2025) creative “huddle”, displaying the pooling of knowledge in a specific, structured context (p. 495). Rather than fixed findings, the supraground reflects ongoing processes.

The project thus yielded two primary assemblages: (1) perceptual shifting in human-soil relationality and (2) performative artifacts for ecological advocacy.

Perceptual Shifting

Processual attunement to soil’s sonic ecologies yielded agential shifts: reflective journals ⁴ tracked rejection of human/nonhuman binaries, manifested by verbatim shifts from observing soil to co-resonating with soil agency. Sensory immediacy disrupted efficiency-driven protocols. The process culminated in interrelating soil and soul, attributing personhood to microscopic non-human organisms, exemplified by the following quote:

A1: Metaphorical level…(1) Something happens underground without being visible at first (something germinates). (2) Place & Diversity = no contradiction, localisation, down-to-earth place-based. (3) Soil as breeding ground for ourselves, regenerative treatment of ourselves. Everything in life carries its own soundtrack—and soil hums with one, too. Soil = echoes of “soul”? As musician and researcher: soil as a symbol of connection, bridging inner and outer worlds…(…). Soil & music = foundational to positive futures: Soil sustains biodiversity, water cycles, and climate resilience; music sustains the soul (…) soil as a source of hope?! (handwritten note, November 24, 2024)

This note was selected from our data assemblage to spotlight a salient moment, vividly conveying the nuanced interplay between artistic practice and ecological engagement at the heart of our re-search: The handwritten germination resonates with invisible microbial rhythms becoming audible, mirroring the shift from “something happens underground” to the “soil = echoes of soul”. The processual attunement dissolves musician-researcher binaries into shared humming (inner/outer connection). No coding; instead, following the hope trajectory: soil’s material sustainment (biodiversity, water cycles) intra-acts with music’s soul-sustenance.

Performative Artifacts

Complementing these perceptual shifts, two performative strands emerged: (1) sensor technology transformed compost microorganisms’ vital movements into composed music, molding audiovisual performances through the musician’s hands. This performative search enacted our responsive attunement, premiering R. Schmid’s composition via livestream and symposium, evoking soil vitality. Among n = 5 audience members, verbatim feedback like Participant 2’s “To experience soil liveliness gave me hope” traced leanings toward regenerative futures. (2) In a sound story Meeting Liselotte, S. Schmid explored attributing personhood to a compost named Liselotte, generating new research becomings through artistic content creation that extends the researcher’s agential role (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1.

QR-Code to musician’s composition.

Figure 2.

QR-Code to researcher’s sound story.

These outputs intra-act as data: Liselotte’s compost respiration rhythms in S. Schmid’s sound story resonating with R. Schmid’s composition motifs and Participant 2’s “soil liveliness” feedback, resonating as sonic hope. We followed these connections relationally across outputs. The sonic artifacts mediate personal transformative becomings alongside public multispecies advocacy for ecological imagineries.

Discussion

Regenerative Sonic Assemblages

The Soil Music project emerged through encountering soil’s complexity, revealing potential futures by imagining soil as agential co-composer. This illustrated posthuman relationality (Haraway, 2016; St. Pierre, 2014), dissolving human/nonhuman boundaries: sonified compost microbial respiration compelled participants to become-with soil entities, rejecting anthropocentric observation.

An ethics of possibility (Pearson, 2025) reframed deliberate role-taking over fixed trajectories as strength. Iterative soundscaping sessions embracing “not-knowing” generated emergent knowledges—like microbial personhood and attunement “to still possible finite flourishing, still possible recuperation” (Haraway, 2016, p. 10)—yielding hope amid crisis.

Regenerative ecology (Moyer et al., 2020) demanded reciprocity: the compost-to-composition pipeline enacted this, with microbial activity informing rhythms to foster public stewardship (Adams et al., 2015). These frameworks cohered as a regenerative assemblage—posthuman ontology, ethical orientation, ecological telos—enabling perceptual shifts, non-binary epistemologies, and performative advocacy grounded in sonic materiality.

Entangled Storytelling and Imaginative Response-ability

Sensory entanglements prioritized messy processes beyond efficiency (Bejtlich & Hankin, 2024), fostering vulnerability, not-knowing, and playfulness in becoming-with (Haraway, 2016). Inquiry into soil’s sonic ecologies attuned us to more-than-human entities, challenging knowledge from shared entanglements over abstract isolation (Haraway, 2010) —such as sitting at a laptop or simply writing about posthumanism. Sonic storytelling centered on our composting theme enacted Haraway’s (2016) composting ethos and response-ability (p. 115). It became a shared obligation for multispecies care (p. 105); recognizing that we mattered in this dynamic assemblage (p. 97).

The focus on imaginative, “unhurried”, deliberately “non-mandatory action” (p. 59) merged research inquiry with attentive, creative engagement (Nordström & Sintonen, 2024, p. 59) potentially nourishing ecological imaginaries.

Methodological Reflections and Limitations

The Soil Music Paradigm, through AEI, challenged our logics of control and extraction by positioning soil as epistemic partner, extending previous work through imagining concrete human-soil relations —linking sonified compost respiration, field notes on “soil = echoes of soul,” and Meeting Liselotte’s personhood attribution.

We began this research amid seemingly hopeless global circumstances, and AEI’s unfamiliar modes of research transformed us, reshaping our professional identities. These practices are meaningful beyond research contexts—as transdisciplinary encounters often are. For S. Schmid (researcher), they arose free from funding or academic reputation. For R. Schmid (musician), they introduced structured accountability to creative processes outside performance. Paths converged: musician delving into posthuman literature, researcher into performative formats. Latent dialogue turned transparent during iterative soundscaping, exposing our sonic becomings (Schmid & Schmid, 2025). Research ceased being formal; it became vital re-search for difficult times.

However, the approach has obvious weaknesses: it cannot claim any unwarranted universality—neither the Soil Music Paradigm’s seven principles nor the research insights can be offered as empirically validated categories, but simply as a grounded conceptual scaffold derived from this very particular research trajectory. It relies on small-scale, situated engagements; and its effects on imaginaries resist linear measurement. Their validity, in this sense, is pragmatic and generative: these proposals invite further experimentation, critique, and adaptation in other contexts.

Outlook

This paper introduced the Soil Music approach, demonstrating how ecological imaginaries grow not only from scientific facts, but from stories, images, and sensory experiences. While technical framings dominate soil and carbon debates, listening to soil fosters more relational, affective understandings, attuning us—through Haraway’s becoming-with and an ethics of possibility—to soil as a living, multispecies commons. Regenerative acts like composting serve both as climate mitigation and as metaphors for creative transformation. By engaging embodied artistic knowledge and dissolving disciplinary boundaries, we make invisible processes, such as soil regeneration, sensorially present.

Looking ahead, research can deepen our understanding of how regenerative approaches inspire new modes of knowledge and practice. Concepts like humusities (Haraway, 2016)—Haraway's vision of earthy, symbiotic “making kin” across species and soil through decomposition and entanglement—invite us to reimagine educational contexts. It shifts education from human-centric models to relational practices where students “stay with the trouble” of ecological interdependence, rethinking curricula through hands-on alliances with nonhumans like microbes and earth systems. Studies in schools could explore how co-creative processes and sensory-material engagement with soil enable both practitioners and students to address environmental challenges, moving beyond extractive paradigms and treating soil as an active partner. Our next steps include artistic research with a game designer to develop participatory, multispecies adventures, and the design of an educational lab grounded in Appreciative Ecological Inquiry—beginning with AI-questions (“What are our disciplinary strengths?”) and CCI-questions (“How can we collectively grasp this phenomenon with creative methods?”), in order to generate new econarratives for future flourishing.

From our perspective, Soil Music does not claim universality, rather, it, offers a generative, partial expansion of our own modes of relating to the living world. It exemplifies how creative inquiry can make complex environmental processes tangible. At a time when apathy threatens to prevail, Appreciative Ecological Inquiry as a regenerative, artivist practice can become a form of hopepunk—a humusity-infused, speculative sensibilization, inviting us to abandon familiar trajectories and begin again by listening deeply. For now, more than ever, it is time to ally ourselves with the more-than-human world.