Presentation short abstract

This article explores how mud shapes wild boar hunting atmospheres in Uruguay, showing how its textures and sensations link dispersed moments, bodies, and spaces. It examines how muddy terrains demand physical and sensory effort, connecting hunters, boars, and dogs, field and home.

Presentation long abstract

This article explores how mud operates as a central modulator in the configuration of wild boar hunting atmospheres in Uruguay. While the idea that hunting extends beyond the moment of killing has been recognized, fewer studies have examined how particular substances, textures, and sensations materially connect dispersed moments, bodies, and spaces. Building on this insight, the paper analyzes how muddy terrains—known locally as mugre—demand physical and sensory effort, shaping the bodies and movements of hunters, boars, and dogs. Mud slows, fatigues, stains, and connects: it ties together the field and the home, the hunt and its aftermath. Focusing on mud’s pervasive materiality shows how atmospheric modulation takes shape through its capacity to slow, stain, and connect bodies and environments. Mud becomes the medium through which dispersed temporalities, practices, and relations cohere, giving ethnographic depth to more-than-human life in rural Uruguay.