Page - 54 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

54 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Agata Stanisz | Tractor unit acoustemology Researching cultures on the way I have been studying sound from the anthropological perspective since 2006, when I intro- duced into my research and educational activities the method of field recording1. I linked audio recording with practicing sensitivity indispensable for conducting ethnographic research in the area of anthropology at home (Peirano 1998, 105-128), especially in the context of urbanized and infrastructural day-to-day reality, where we encounter obvious and domesticated pheno- mena, which usually makes them semantically transparent for us (Atkinson 2007, 1905-1917; 2011, 12–26). Since I became interested in sound, I focus on the methodological aspect of applying the very basic assumption of anthropology of sound (or more broadly – anthropology of senses) that scientific democratization of senses and devisualization of field knowledge is not only possible but also epistemically prospective (Howes 1991, 3-23; 2005; Stoller 1997; Pater- son 2009, 766-788). Generally, sound (its production, distribution and all types of auditory practices) significantly influences the way we experience reality. This influence is, in my opi- nion, especially pronounced in the urban, or widely speaking industrial, environment, which tend to be particularly sounded. My first project where I consistently applied the ideas of anthropology of sound was created as late as in 2011. This is when I started doing ethnographic mobile studies among tractor unit drivers working for international forwarding companies and dealing with transport of goods in western Europe2. In the summer 2011, I got into the cab of a tractor unit for the first time. It was on the Danish-German border. The tractor unit with a semitrailer belonged to an international for- warding company employing about 200 drivers, mostly from Poland and Romania. This was when I set off on a three-week-long journey with my key informer – a professional driver with 30 years of experience. 1 See the author’s Internet projects: Sound Map: alternative sound map of the city of Poznań created on the basis of field research conducted during classes in the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at AMU in Poznań, http://www.soundsmap.amu.edu.pl [accessed 2017-04-11]; Sound City: ethnographic sound notes and city audiosphere studies, http://miastodzwiekow.blogspot.com [accessed 2017-04-11]; Antropofon: the first anthro- pological podcast with ethnographic features, http://antropofon.blogspot.com [accessed 2017-04-11]; as part of Sounds of Europe, http://www.soundsofeurope.eu/eblog/field-recordings-trucks-and-an-anthropologist [accessed 2017-04-11]; collections of field recordings on the Freesound, http://www.freesound.org/people/miastodzwiekow [accessed 2017-04-11] and Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/@sound_city_project [accessed 2017-04- 11]. 2 This article most of all reflects upon my first journey in a mobile field when I gathered the most impressive collection of field recordings and presented the research process as an audiovisual blog entitled Transportodrone, http://transportodrone.tumblr.com/ [accessed 2017-04-11]. The project is located in between cultural anthro- pology, ethnography and the free culture movement, and should be associated with a postulate of sharing and democratizing both fieldwork and scientific knowledge. Also I have carried out the following projects to date: Mobile modernizations. The influence of A2 motorway on the local cultural landscapes (2013-2017) – a project financed by the National Science Centre, Mobility industry: between the regime of logistics and performance (2015), Transnationality on the road. Studies of long-haul tractor unit drivers in Western Europe (2012), Culture on the road: Translocality and mobility of long-haul tractor unit drivers (2011) – projects financed from the research grants as part of Young Staff Development program at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at AMU in Poznań.