Gail Adams-Hutcheson

Farming in the troposphere: drawing together affective atmospheres and elemental geographies

Abstract This paper focuses on the much-neglected contribution of weather to research encounters. Affective atmospheres and elemental geographies are used as a platform to examine the vibrant materialities of the troposphere. The weather encapsulates human and non-human bodies, moods and actions in an enveloping space and I trace how these materialities and immaterialities are transmitted between bodies in the research setting. In a (post)phenomenological sense, certain atmospheric and meteorological events figure as lively participants. Through three research moments with farmers, I discuss how various weather conditions such as a warm balmy spring, wet muddy winter and the suffocating heat of summer enables thinking on the relational weight of atmospheres. By following participants throughout the circadian rhythms of farming over a year, seasonal fluctuations were recorded. Thus, researcher effort to comprehend how bodies become attuned and sensitive to the causal powers of the troposphere is foregrounded within share-farming experiences.

Embodied Vibrations: Disastrous Mobilities in Relocation from the Christchurch Earthquakes, Aotearoa New Zealand

This article contributes to debates that consider things (buildings) that have previously been assumed to be bounded and fixed. When thinking about how literally anything can become mobile, this article addresses how buildings “live on” through the bodies of participants. The notion of material affects is advanced to draw together a complex set of ideas on vibrant materialities. Material affects, then, entangle the earth, forces, embodiment, and micromobilities to expose the vibrant matter of buildings. Empirical material is drawn from semistructured interviews with people who relocated out of Christchurch following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes and aftershocks. In relocation, acute spatial awareness and sensitivity to movement and vibration—that is, the minute shudders and flexes of buildings—colonized the bodies of participants. Material affects are able to challenge the distinction between vital energy (life) forces and materiality.