Description
This paper draws on recent scholarship on atmospheres but departs from the common understanding of atmosphere as a register of collective affect or mood. Instead, it approaches atmosphere as a material and elemental environment. Emerging studies have shown that violence is not only exercised through atmospheres—such as in aerial bombardments or drone strikes—but that atmospheres themselves can act violently. This becomes evident in the deliberate weaponization of atmosphere, where air, sound, heat, or other material elements are modulated to injure and control—examples include gas attacks, sonic weapons, or torture through exposure to extreme temperatures.
Adopting this atmospheric understanding of violence opens new perspectives on post-war societies. Violence does not end when the guns fall silent. Rather it continues to manifest—both during and after conflict—within the material surroundings of social life. The paper argues that attending to different atmospheric phenomena—sound, climate, and substances—enables an expanded conception of peace that foregrounds the persistence of violence beyond formal ceasefires. From lingering landmine explosions to air contaminated by the destruction of infrastructure, such atmospheric residues reveal how violence remains active in the very air of post-war life. An atmospheric reading of peace, therefore, exposes how violence continues even after peace has ostensibly been achieved.
