Bibliothek / EigenverlageÖsterreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde128 (2025) / N.S. 791 (2025)Murawska, Oliwia: Seeing through Sand

Oliwia MurawskaSeeing through Sand.Reflections on Stimmungin KashubiaSouthern Kashubia, characterised by its rural landscape, is mostlythought of in terms of its lakes and forests, although there is anotheractor that appears even more dominant on closer inspection: thesand. And once the sand has been perceived and has found its wayinto consciousness, something equally invisible and unconsideredshimmers through it, which resonates through the landscape togetherwith the entities embedded in it: Stimmung. Based on empirical-posthumanist field studies, the article aims to discuss the connectionbetween Stimmung and sand and to present three contrasting methodsfor revealing their mutuality: 1. the everyday practice of shaking outsand, 2. the reading of Stimmung and sand out of prosaic, poetic andethnographic texts, and 3. the visualisation of sand and Stimmungusing the point cloud metaphor. The article reflects on how sand andStimmung can be conceptualised in a posthumanist way.On the forest road between Robaczkowo and Wiele, the inhabitantsof the Southern Kashubian village of Chojny have erected a sign rea-ding“Prosimy nie wkurzaj”(“Please don’t annoy us”), combined witha request to drive only 20 km/h instead of the prescribed 40 km/h(Fig. 1). Adjacent to an image depicting a car with a cloud of dust beingcrossed out, the phrase,“social action concerning movement on unpa -ved roads in the developed area of Chojny” is inscribed in small letters.In the Polish wordwkurzaj, the middle four letters form the wordkurz–dust. A passing motorist will quickly understand this play onwords, especially in summer when it has not rained for weeks, whichis increasingly the case in the wake of anthropogenic climate change.Passing cars stir up the sandy roads to such an extent that the air