Atmospheric negations: Weaponising breathing, attuning irreducible bodies

Abstract

This paper elaborates various ways in which atmospheric negations operate by weaponising bodily vulnerability to air. It shows, firstly, how bodies remain exposed to colonial proximities of respiratory, olfactory, and sonic violence with ways that are constituted through negating site- and body-spheres. It highlights these spheric materialities by discussing the use of tear gas and skunk water, bombing of chemical warehouses, and the sonic settler aggression in Palestine, further arguing that we need to pay more attention to the irreducibility of the body to such violent orchestrations of atmospheric. Here the irreducibility of the body and the incapacity of the spheric become key matters related to what is called, secondly, the reciprocal sphereological vulnerability between the corporeal and the spheric. By paying particular attention to difference between breathing and attunement, the paper shows how a negative limit condition resides at the heart of what constitutes sphere-dwelling. Here an ontological shift in thinking atmospheric is suggested, one that starts, not from current framings aligned around the notions of vitality, affirmation, and relationality, but from the weaponisation of the fundamental incapacity of the body to overcome its own vulnerability to the air it breathes.

Weathering violence: Atmospheric materialities and olfactory durations of ‘skunk water’ in Palestine

“…Classen et al, 1994;Hsu, 2020) but importantly, we argue, through the material markingnamely, through the olfactory weathering of bodies, neighbourhoods, and atmospheres with a stench designed to stick. Such a repulsive weathering tool thus speaks further of the negativity of material atmospheres (Joronen, 2023), particularly of their way of engendering effluvium and fetid olfactory violence against colonised bodies, objects, and mundane spaces.…”

“…The nose sniffs as the body breathes the air that moves. Indeed, breathing is not something the body could voluntarily decide to stop or overcome; it rather signifies the way a sniffing body is constantly dependent on and immersed in its material surroundingsits aerial spheres of atmospheric gaseousness and odorous proximities (on breathing, Joronen, 2023;Kenner, 2021;Nieuwenhuis, 2016;Walker et al, 2020). And yet, in addition to being bound to smell spheres, bodies, like all objects, also produce smell: they spread their odors and mix them with those surrounding them.…”

“…While so approaching skunk water as a material technology of weaponising aerial lingering(s) and moving durations of smell, the violent effects of skunk water spraying, we argue, cannot be separated from its operational logic. Our focus on skunk water as a 'matter in motion' (Nail, 2019) thus aims to provide new insights into debates around material and environmental aspects of atmospheric violence (see Adey et al, 2013;Fregonese, 2017;Joronen, 2023;Lambert, 2017;Nieuwenhuis, 2016), particularly on questions related to ways in which atmospheric materiality operates through the olfactory weaponisation of lingering effluvia (in Palestine, and beyond).…”

Gaza: A decolonial geography

“…Across this work, a detailed picture of spatial segregation emerges, or specifically how colonial space is multiple and mutable. Depending on which parts of Palestine they live in, Palestinians are severely restricted in movement (Griffiths & Repo, 2020Hammami, 2015Hammami, , 2019Rijke & Minca, 2018Tawil-Souri, 2009; facing forced displacements and demolitions of their homes (Harker, 2009;Joronen & Griffiths, 2019;Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2009); under the surveillance of settler civil society (Griffiths, 2023;Medien, 2023); caught within uncertain bureaucratic and juridical processes (Berda, 2017;Joronen, 2017b); military practices of (non) 'ethical' operations (Jones, 2023;Puar, 2017); dedevelopment (Roy, 1999;Smith, 2016); infrastructure and practices of urban land grabbing (Alkhalili, 2017a(Alkhalili, , 2017bAlkhalili et al, 2014;Joudah, 2020;Porter & Yiftachel, 2017;Salamanca & Silver, 2022); an assault on the animating function of hope and future (Abu Hatoum, 2021;Amir, 2021;Hassouna, 2024;Meneley, 2021); the more-than-human geographies of subjugation (Bishara et al, 2021;Braverman, 2021Braverman, , 2023Griffiths, 2022;Joronen, 2023;Stamatopoulou-Robbins, 2022); and a general suppression of Palestinian political and cultural expression (Alqaisiya, 2018;Järvi, 2023). If here we are reference-heavy, it is in the service of collating reading resources that can contribute to a decolonial politics that is informed through robust geographical inquiry.…”