Attuning to ambiguous atmospheres

Currents of air, discourse and time in a steel town

Bibliographic Data

ID8962331
AuthorsErin Roberts (0000-0003-4818-2926, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Cardiff UK, corresponding author), C Groves (0000-0002-5873-1119, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Cardiff UK), Gareth Thomas (0000-0002-8462-0236, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Psychology Cardiff University Cardiff UK), Fiona Shirani (0000-0002-6963-4971, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Cardiff UK), Catherine Cherry (0000-0002-1443-9634, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Psychology Cardiff University Cardiff UK), Nick Pidgeon (Cardiff University), Nick F Pidgeon (0000-0002-8991-0398, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Psychology Cardiff University Cardiff UK), K Henwood (0000-0002-4631-5468, Understanding Risk Research Group & School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Cardiff UK)
Year2023
Volume49
Issue3
Publication date2023-08-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/tran.12631
OpenAlexW4385703023
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited58

How atmospheric pollution is perceived by urban dwellers has long been a topic of interest within geography and the social sciences, whether to draw attention to environmental injustices, to better understand the materialities and affects associated with polluted air, or to grasp how people ‘tune in’ to polluted matter. In this paper, we draw on three interrelated geographical and social science literatures on polluted air to inform our exploration of how residents of an industrial town in the UK encounter and perceive localised ambient air pollution. Using creative methods, we explore residents' narrative accounts of everyday life in the town, revealing how their engagements with the matter of pollution over time are drawn from multiple registers, giving rise to a plurality of perceptions filled with tensions between near and far, and between past, present and future, producing an ambiguous atmosphere all of its own. The paper contributes to geographic explorations of urban atmospheres an understanding of how they are differently experienced and known, and how residential perceptions might persist or change over different timescales

Air pollution · Art · Atmosphere (unit · Everyday life · Geography · Literature · Meteorology · Narrative · Perception · Political science · Sociology · Ecology · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Psychology · Urban Green Space and Health

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