European University Institute Library

Voluminous states, sovereignty, materiality, and the territorial imagination, edited by Franck Billé

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

mapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

Voluminous states

bibliography

1122692405

edited by Franck Billé

sovereignty, materiality, and the territorial imagination

"VOLUMINOUS STATES is an edited collection using, and expanding on, the volumetric approach to conceptualize the extension of sovereignty. In building a new framework attendant to those dimensions of sovereignty that are made invisible on a traditional two-dimensional map, the contributions in this volume represent a perspective that can better account for and integrate the many ways in which methods of surveillance, management, and control are extended over and through aerial, subterranean, and maritime spaces. Often referred to as the volumetric turn, this conceptual approach begins by confronting the familiar assumption that nations are discrete entities defined by borders. For decades, this understanding has persisted in political science and international relations, despite the persistent reminders from geographers and other fields that territory and sovereignty have never been coextensive. By conceptualizing territory as volume rather than area, scholars are better able to account for the ways in which states overflow and reach beyond, or fail to extend fully within, their own borders. VOLUMINOUS STATES pushes the volumetric turn further, asking not only how territory is measured and conceptualized, but also how it is experienced and lived. The volume is divided into three thematic parts-sovereignty, materiality, and the imaginary-that structure the form of analysis represented by the project overall. Part I considers how the traditional imperatives of sovereignty, such as mapping and making visible or legible, are newly enabled by technologies such as the ability to map a subterranean space in order to extend military control and management (Wayne Chambliss, chapter 4). In contrast, Part II, Materiality, considers how sovereign territory other than land is experienced through more-than-human entanglements with flora and fauna, such as the ecosystems at the U.S.-Mexico border, or with unpredictable forms, such as ice sheets in the Arctic, resistant to the methods of control established with land in mind. The third and final part sets forth what editor Franck Billé refers to as a "volumetric imaginary," integrating the invisible and its effects on the lived experience of sovereign control. For example, Lisa Sang Mi Min's chapter in this part considers the movement of sounds between North and South Korea, which reveals the visual bias of logics intended to control movement in the DMZ. This book will be of interest to readers in anthropology, geography, political science, science and technology studies, and border studies, as well as readers interested in international relations, modern warfare, surveillance, and cartography"--, Provided by publisher

Warren : subterranean structures at a sea border of Ukraine / Caroline Humphrey -- Tunnel : striating and militarizing subterranean space in the Republic of Georgia / Elizabeth Cullen Dunn -- Spoofing : the geophysics of not being governed / Wayne Chambliss -- Lag : four-dimensional bordering in the Himalayas / Tina Harris -- Traffic : authorizing airspace, appifying governance / Marcel LaFlamme -- Fissure : cracking, forcing, and covering up / Klaus Dodds -- Downwind : three phases of an aerosol form / Jerry Zee -- Necrotone : death-dealing volumetrics at the US-Mexico border / Hilary Cunningham -- Surface : seeing, solidifying, and scaling urban space in Hong Kong / Clancy Wilmott -- Gravity : on the primacy of terrain / Gastón Gordillo -- Geometries : from analogy to performativity / Sarah Green -- Buoyancy : blue territorialization of Asian power / Aihwa Ong -- Seepage : that which oozes / Jason Cons -- Jigsaw : micropartitioning in the enclaves of Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau / Franck Billé -- Echolocation : within the sonic fold of the Korean Demilitarized Zone / Lisa Sang Mi Min -- Beyond: An afterword / Debbora Battaglia