Weathering violence

Atmospheric materialities and olfactory durations of 'skunk water' in Palestine

Bibliographic Data

ID4464585
AuthorsM Joronen (0000-0002-4051-2348, Tampere University, corresponding author), Wassim Ghantous (0000-0002-6386-1444, Tampere University)
Year2024
Volume7
Issue3
Pages1122-1141
Publication date2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486241226923
OpenAlexW4391393774
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited70

This paper examines a particular technique of weaponising smell - the spraying of 'skunk water', a crowd control tool originally developed by the Israeli Police to disperse Palestinian protests - and the olfactory atmospheres of moving matter it extends its violence through. It focuses particularly on ways in which skunk water spraying operates by 'weathering' the air with a stench that sticks on bodies, objects and spaces, often for considerably long periods. By elaborating the two entwined aspects of weathering - the weaponising and the meteorological - the paper shows how skunk water spraying engenders malodourous olfactory durations that move and through their movement extend their violence through meteorological fluidities and moving bodies/objects. The violence of skunk water, we so argue, contains lingering tempos that through material morphoses (water, mist, droplets, dried powder), reactivating/intensifying weather conditions (rain, heat, humidity, wind), and material kinetics (moving bodies, objects and air) spatialise proximities of atmospheric stench, hence targeting the way breathing bodies are immersed in their olfactory environments. By comprehending weathering as weaponised 'matter in motion', the paper offers a novel way of thinking about atmospheric violence through non-linear movements and lingering proximities - namely, as a weaponisation of an olfactory duration of a stinky matter that moves

Ancient history · Astrobiology · Biology · Geochemistry · Palestine · Weathering · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Environmental Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Geology

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