Faidon Papadakis is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, and a researcher at the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes. His doctoral research looks into the ways that a focus on plants opens city gardeners to a wide range of encounters with nonhuman and nonplant others, including microbes. Combining autoethnography with ethnographic fieldwork in Athens and Helsinki, Faidon’s research investigates everyday skills of noticing, caring and controlling; ways of knowing and thinking plants and microbes; and how embodied practices and personal meaning interweave with broader political issues.
Research interests: urban gardening, composting, soil, multispecies ethnography, interdisciplinary methods, posthumanist theory
