Granular Configurations. Sand, Materiality, and Planetary Urbanization
Book Launch with Michaela Büsse (editor) & Lukas Ley (contributor)
Often dismissed as too ordinary to warrant attention, sand occupies a critical position at the intersection of ecological, economic, and geopolitical processes. As the essential ingredient for the production of concrete, glass, and land, sand underwrites the infrastructures of modernity and forms the material substrate of contemporary urbanization. Granular Configurations: Sand, Materiality, and Planetary Urbanization examines the world’s most widely used—and most overlooked—building material. Bringing together perspectives from geography, geology, the social sciences, art, and the humanities, the book follows sand’s movements across scales and sites, revealing how it resists stable categorization within political, economic, and ecological systems. Tracing its passage from rivers and seabeds to construction sites and artificial islands, sand appears not merely as a neutral resource, but as a medium through which processes of dispossession, accumulation, and environmental transformation unfold. From extractive regimes and colonial legacies to fragile infrastructures and grassroots struggles, sand emerges as an unstable and contested force shaping the planetary urban condition.
