
Voluminous States
Sovereignty, Materiality, and the Territorial Imagination
Franck Bille(Editor)
Duke University Press
Published on 14. August 2020
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-4780-0791-3 (ISBN)
Description
From the Arctic to the South China Sea, states are vying to secure sovereign rights over vast maritime stretches, undersea continental plates, shifting ice flows, airspace, and the subsoil. Conceiving of sovereign space as volume rather than area, the contributors to Voluminous States explore how such a conception reveals and underscores the three-dimensional nature of modern territorial governance. In case studies ranging from the United States, Europe, and the Himalayas to Hong Kong, Korea, and Bangladesh, the contributors outline how states are using airspace surveillance, maritime patrols, and subterranean monitoring to gain and exercise sovereignty over three-dimensional space. Whether examining how militaries are digging tunnels to create new theaters of operations, the impacts of climate change on borders, or the relation between borders and nonhuman ecologies, they demonstrate that a three-dimensional approach to studying borders is imperative for gaining a fuller understanding of sovereignty.
Contributors. Debbora Battaglia, Franck BillE, Wayne Chambliss, Jason Cons, Hilary Cunningham (Scharper), Klaus Dodds, Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, GastOn Gordillo, Sarah Green, Tina Harris, Caroline Humphrey, Marcel LaFlamme, Lisa Sang Mi Min, Aihwa Ong, Clancy Wilmott, Jerry Zee
Contributors. Debbora Battaglia, Franck BillE, Wayne Chambliss, Jason Cons, Hilary Cunningham (Scharper), Klaus Dodds, Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, GastOn Gordillo, Sarah Green, Tina Harris, Caroline Humphrey, Marcel LaFlamme, Lisa Sang Mi Min, Aihwa Ong, Clancy Wilmott, Jerry Zee
Reviews / Votes
"Responding to the changing ways in which states are colonizing previously inconceivable dimensions of life and livelihood in the ever-reinvented interests of territorial sovereignty, Voluminous States tackles real-life issues of state control. With its specific focus on three-dimensional space as itself a materiality as well as a force in political conceptions and social analysis, it will be welcomed by scholars interested in climate change, sustainability, sovereignty, territoriality, and beyond. This volume sparks the imagination." - Marilyn Strathern, author of (Relations: An Anthropological Account) "Taking materiality and dimensionality seriously in thinking about geopolitics, Voluminous States is likely to become a standard reference in developing debates in human geography, political theory, international relations, and anthropology. Global in reach, this is a great project that is executed extremely well." - Stuart Elden, author of (Shakespearean Territories) "[Voluminous States] provides a highly nuanced and textured examination of the tensions between the state's intrusive attempts to flatten, homogenize, and control space.... Wide ranging studies lend this volume conceptual richness, social and cultural texture, and geographical diversity.... The book never fails to sustain the readers' interest." - Martin T. Fromm (Environment, Space, Place) "The essays in Voluminous States are a landmark contribution to the anthropology of the state that needs to be urgently read not only by political anthropologists/geographers or anthropologists of space, but also by anyone interested in understanding our perilous world." - Christos Lynteris (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
13 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
567 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4780-0791-3 (9781478007913)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2020
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Persons
Franck BillE is Program Director of the Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Sinophobia: Anxiety, Violence, and the Making of Mongolian Identity and coeditor of Yellow Perils: China Narratives in the Contemporary World.
Debbora Battaglia is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College and editor of E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces.
Debbora Battaglia is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College and editor of E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces.
Content
Acknowledgments ix
Voluminous: An Introduction / Franck BillE 1
Sovereignty
1. Warren: Subterranean Structures at a Sea Border of Ukraine / Caroline Humphrey 39
2. Tunnel: Striating and Militarizing Subterranean Space in the Republic of Georgia / Elizabeth Cullen Dunn 52
3. Spoofing: The Geophysics of Not Being Governed / Wayne Chambliss 64
4. Lag: Four-Dimensional Bordering in the Himalayas / Tina Harris 78
5. Traffic: Authorizing Airspace, Applying Governance / Marcel LaFlamme 91
Materiality
6. Fissure: Cracking, Forcing, and Covering Up / Klaus Dodds 105
7. Downwind: Three Phases of a Aerosol Form / Jerry Zee 119
8. Necrotone: Death-Dealing Volumetrics at the US-Mexico Border / Hilary Cunningham 131
9. Surface: Seeing, Solidifying, and Scaling Urban Space in Hong Kong / Clancy Wilmott 146
10. Gravity: On the Primacy of Terrain / GastOn Gordillo
Territorial Imagination
11. Geometries: From Analogy to Performativity / Sarah Green 175
12. Buoyancy: Blue Territorialization of Asian Power / Aihwa Ong 191
13. Seepage: That which Oozes / Jason Cons 204
14. Jigsaw: Micropartitioning in the Enclaves of Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassu / Franck BillE 217
15. Echolocation: Within the Sonic Fold of the Korean Demilitarized Zone / Lisa Sang-Mi Min 230
Beyond: An Afterword / Debbora Battaglia 243
Bibliography 253
Index 279
Voluminous: An Introduction / Franck BillE 1
Sovereignty
1. Warren: Subterranean Structures at a Sea Border of Ukraine / Caroline Humphrey 39
2. Tunnel: Striating and Militarizing Subterranean Space in the Republic of Georgia / Elizabeth Cullen Dunn 52
3. Spoofing: The Geophysics of Not Being Governed / Wayne Chambliss 64
4. Lag: Four-Dimensional Bordering in the Himalayas / Tina Harris 78
5. Traffic: Authorizing Airspace, Applying Governance / Marcel LaFlamme 91
Materiality
6. Fissure: Cracking, Forcing, and Covering Up / Klaus Dodds 105
7. Downwind: Three Phases of a Aerosol Form / Jerry Zee 119
8. Necrotone: Death-Dealing Volumetrics at the US-Mexico Border / Hilary Cunningham 131
9. Surface: Seeing, Solidifying, and Scaling Urban Space in Hong Kong / Clancy Wilmott 146
10. Gravity: On the Primacy of Terrain / GastOn Gordillo
Territorial Imagination
11. Geometries: From Analogy to Performativity / Sarah Green 175
12. Buoyancy: Blue Territorialization of Asian Power / Aihwa Ong 191
13. Seepage: That which Oozes / Jason Cons 204
14. Jigsaw: Micropartitioning in the Enclaves of Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassu / Franck BillE 217
15. Echolocation: Within the Sonic Fold of the Korean Demilitarized Zone / Lisa Sang-Mi Min 230
Beyond: An Afterword / Debbora Battaglia 243
Bibliography 253
Index 279