Sandcastles in academia (part 3 – building and mobilities)

Following along from the question ‘What’s the point of building a sandcastle?‘ we might perhaps go on to ask, ‘What exactly is a sandcastle?’ Authors Professor Michael Haldrup,  and Professor Jonas Larsen of the Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change Space, Place, Mobility and Urban Studies, Roskilde University, Denmark, give explanations in their essay ‘Material Cultures of Tourism’ (Leisure Studies, Volume 25, Issue 3, 2006)
Firstly, the construction methodologies are described :

“Buckets and spades enable the mobilization of sand and water that is necessary for human hands to build the sandcastle.“

The authors then go on to not only define a sandcastle, but also to explore the ’embodied activities’ and ‘performances of nature’ which sandcastle-building involves :

“The ‘sandcastle’ is a heterogeneous order drawing imaginative, corporeal and object mobilities together. These mobilities are all elements of the networks that stabilize and regulate the sedimented practices that transform the endless mass of white, golden, fine-grained or gravelly sand into a habitat; a kingdom of sand imbued with dreams, hopes and pride.“

More details from the essay can be found here :

This concludes our brief Improbable examination of Sandcastles in Academia.

BONUS : Dutch inventor Wilfred Stijger demos his hand operated arenaceous sculptural sphericalizer a.k.a “The Willysphere”