Uncomfortable neighbourings: thoughts on becoming atmospheric in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Uncomfortable neighbourings: thoughts on becoming atmospheric in the Anthropocene.

Planetary present, planetary futures. As many have argued, there is a gap, an abyss, that stretches between the scale of the planet and that of lived experience, yet there are moments when the seeming solidity and stability of the everyday give way to a dawning realisation of being caught up cycles and processes that extend far beyond the local.

Drawing on fieldwork undertaken with the Sensibilia project (https://sensibilia.hypotheses.org) , this paper takes as its focus contemporary atmospheres; a useful English word comprising of both ambiance and weather (McCormick 2018). More specifically, it relates the experience of following the team responsible for monitoring emissions from the Athanor incinerator plant that treats municipal and non-toxic industrial and hospital waste from Grenoble and the surrounding region. Built in 1976, transformed by a series of upgrades to its combustion and filtration systems, and currently destined to be replaced in 2025, Athanor’s three ovens transform just under 200,000 tonnes of waste into smoke and ash; clothes, pushchairs, toys, food, wood, plasterboard, mattresses, dead animals; the synthetic, organic, geologic become atmospheric. The paper follows the day-to-day, hour-by-hour workings of the plant, moving down the chain from stockage, to oven, to chimney and out, where scientists run series of atmospheric and biological surveys trying to ascertain the concentrations of gases, heavy metals, dioxins released.

Athanor is a kilometre from the flat I share with my family, a kilometre from the vegetables we plant everyday spring on our balcony, even less from the park where I play football with my kids. This uncomfortable neighbouring is the Anthropocene writ small, in which the atmosphere – as the air we inhale, as the air into which exhale, along with our cars, our industry, our fires – has become a matter of concern (Stengers 2011). What I’m interested in exploring here is the experience of becoming conscious of this otherwise easily unremarkable neighbouring. Notwithstanding occasional unusual smells and sounds (especially during the quiet of the lockdown), most of what circulates in this atmospheric neighnourhood falls below the radar of sensory awareness. And everything is done to keep it below. But occasionally this uneasy peace is disrupted: an oven malfunction and visible smoke; a report circulating the local news, political struggles over the future of the incinerator. Despite the growing awareness of our imbrication in the atmospheric, large-scale infrastructures like Athanor struggle to become objects of public and political concern and debate.

References

McCormack, D. P. (2018). Atmospheric things: On the allure of elemental envelopment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Stengers, I. (2011). Comparison as a matter of concern. Common knowledge, 17(1), 48-63.