Sandcastles in academia (part 2 – the point)

Sandcastles, in general, don’t tend to last. They are transient. Maybe even a metaphor for transience. Suggesting, perhaps, the question ‘What’s the point of building one?’ Steps towards answers are provided in a paper for the scholarly journal The Senses and Society, Volume 4, Number 2, July 2009 , pp. 195-210(16). Where author Dr. Pau Obrador-Pons PhD, MA, BA (Hons) who is a senior lecturer in tourism, of the Faculty of Business and Law, University of Sunderland, UK, explains that :

“The point of building a sandcastle is not the mimetic reproduction of a preformed image but the actual process of building it.”

To expand :

“Building sandcastles is first and foremost a ‘performative experiment’ (Thrift 1997: 145), one that uses the elusory qualities of touch, in particular the manipulative hand, to disclose virtual worlds. Through the manipulation of the sand, alternative ways of being are configured, new geographies are opened out, new connections and assemblages are tested, and some meanings and utopias are spatialized.”

see: ‘Building Castles in the Sand: Repositioning Touch on the Beach’

COMING SOON : in Sandcastles in academia (part 3) ‘What is a sandcastle?’

BONUS : The science of ‘How to Build the Perfect Sandcastle’ from BBC Focus Magazine (from which the still above is taken)