Atemwende,or how to breathe differently

Abstract

This commentary makes use of the affinity between the body and the element of air to come to what I call ‘a politics of the air’. The commentary uses Peter Adey’s discussion on the relationship between the air and geopolitics as a springboard to initiate a project, which wishes to reconsider the material components conventionally considered to constitute politics. The commentary first provides a general introduction expanding on Adey’s notion of chemical affects, before moving on to explore how the act of breathing forms the hidden link between the air and the body. The commentary thereby wishes to argue that it is through the act of breathing in which we can start envisaging a politics of a different substance.