1st Edition

Ways of Breathing and Knowing The Politics and Poetics of Air, Atmosphere, and the Body

Edited By Nasima Selim, Judith Albrecht Copyright 2026
200 Pages 26 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

200 Pages 26 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book studies the multiple ways of breathing (in) and knowing (of) contemporary lifeworlds. It offers a collection of ethnographic and interdisciplinary essays articulating the politics and poetics of air, atmosphere, and the body across diverse geographical locations, historical moments, and theoretical approaches. The book argues that air, atmosphere, and the body are relational entities... Read more

An Introduction Nasima Selim and Judith Albrecht Part I. Breathing as an Ethnographic Register and Empirical Matter 1 Breathing in and out of Court as a Spirometric Moment: Tracking Epistemic Violence through Ethnographic Respiration Judith Albrecht 2 “I wanna breathe like you, these streets are mine too”: The Colonial-Capitalist Breathing Heritage of Everyday Life in Southeast London Franca Marquardt 3 “It is becoming difficult to breathe in there”: Queer-Trans-Feminist Encounters with Breath/ing in a University Campus of India Uddipta Roy Part II. Post/COVID-19 and Breathing Troubles 4 Air Hunger: Viral Atmospheres and the Siege of Breath Malini Sur 5 “Tuachiwe Tupumuwe!” (Let us breathe): Decolonizing COVID-19, Suffocating Sovereignty, and Rest-less Respiration in Tanzania, Zanzibar Franziska Fay 6 The Politics of Breathing Troubles in COVID-19: Pandemic Inequalities and the Right to Breathe across India and Germany Nasima Selim Part III. Aesthetics and Poetics of Air and Breath 7 Sour Wind Megan J. Gette 8 Aria to APNEA: The Airs of Doing in Opera Maribeth Diggle 9 Breathing in the Web(s) of Life: Tomás Saraceno on the Practices and Poetics of Aerocene Viola Castellano Part IV. Aerial, Atmospheric, and Respiratory Politics 10 Breath as Grammar: The Politics and Poetics of Breath and Black Experience Melody Howse 11 Burning Lungs: The Atmopolitics of Wildfires in Indigenous Canada Marijn Nieuwenhuis I N H A L E: A commentary Sana Chavoshian

Biography

Nasima Selim is a Professor of Public Anthropology at the University of Bremen and Adjunct Professor at the James P Grant School of Public Health, Brac University.

Judith Albrecht is an Elisabeth Liszt Senior Fellow at the University of Graz and a senior researcher at Webster Vienna.