Insure the volume? 171
later acknowledging the equal importance of materiality and embodiment
in thinking with volumetric spaces (Elden 2020). The title of this chapter is
a play on Elden’s (2013) term ‘secure the volume.’
Thinking space volumetrically involves thinking through ‘height and
depth instead of surface, [and thinking in] three dimensions instead of
areas’ (Elden 2013, p. 35). Volumetric approaches have largely been concerned with metrics and measurement, whilst voluminous approaches
emphasise embodied understandings of material entities (e.g. dust) within
dynamic assemblages (e.g. air, oceans), which are never static and cannot
be contained (Steinberg & Peters 2015). This distinction is important when
considering the issues of governance and liability intrinsic to volumetric
sovereignty, as it helps us unravel why a 2D conceptualisation of space is
inadequate for mapping the leaky materialities of the CEZ. As Steinberg
and Peters’ (2015, pp. 258–259) highlight,
…legal institutions will always attempt to delimit volumes into strata
just as they will always attempt to delimit horizontal spaces into areas
[…] But the nature of territory as a political technology means this process will always be met with a resistance that reflects underlying dynamics that are both social and geophysical. [… In turning] our attention to
the volumes within which politics is practised and territory is produced
we must continually rethink the borders that we apply to various materialities and their physical states.
In bringing together these bodies of work, we aim to show how volumetric
space and the movement of (contaminated) air are bound up with ideas and
information as well as sensing and feeling (Mitchell 2011). These concepts
are pertinent to insurance studies, as they speak to the difficulties posed by
complex configurations of causation, harm, and responsibility that characterise disasters in the techno-natures of the Anthropocene. They attune
scholars to the muddled spatialities and temporalities that come with accelerating environmental change. In what follows, we foreground the relationships between affective atmospheres, sensing assemblages, and volumetric
sovereignty to illustrate why the volume of radioactive particles rereleased
by wildfires in the CEZ is difficult to manage and even harder to insure.
Wildfires in the CEZ
On 26 April 1986, the explosion and subsequent open-air graphite fire at
Reactor No. 4 of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) contaminated the soil, water, and atmosphere alike with radioactive material at a
rate equivalent to twenty times that released during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Higginbotham 2019). For nine days, the fire produced
updrafts that lifted deadly plumes of radioactive material into the atmosphere, which wind and rain distributed over (what was then) the western
later acknowledging the equal importance of materiality and embodiment
in thinking with volumetric spaces (Elden 2020). The title of this chapter is
a play on Elden’s (2013) term ‘secure the volume.’
Thinking space volumetrically involves thinking through ‘height and
depth instead of surface, [and thinking in] three dimensions instead of
areas’ (Elden 2013, p. 35). Volumetric approaches have largely been concerned with metrics and measurement, whilst voluminous approaches
emphasise embodied understandings of material entities (e.g. dust) within
dynamic assemblages (e.g. air, oceans), which are never static and cannot
be contained (Steinberg & Peters 2015). This distinction is important when
considering the issues of governance and liability intrinsic to volumetric
sovereignty, as it helps us unravel why a 2D conceptualisation of space is
inadequate for mapping the leaky materialities of the CEZ. As Steinberg
and Peters’ (2015, pp. 258–259) highlight,
…legal institutions will always attempt to delimit volumes into strata
just as they will always attempt to delimit horizontal spaces into areas
[…] But the nature of territory as a political technology means this process will always be met with a resistance that reflects underlying dynamics that are both social and geophysical. [… In turning] our attention to
the volumes within which politics is practised and territory is produced
we must continually rethink the borders that we apply to various materialities and their physical states.
In bringing together these bodies of work, we aim to show how volumetric
space and the movement of (contaminated) air are bound up with ideas and
information as well as sensing and feeling (Mitchell 2011). These concepts
are pertinent to insurance studies, as they speak to the difficulties posed by
complex configurations of causation, harm, and responsibility that characterise disasters in the techno-natures of the Anthropocene. They attune
scholars to the muddled spatialities and temporalities that come with accelerating environmental change. In what follows, we foreground the relationships between affective atmospheres, sensing assemblages, and volumetric
sovereignty to illustrate why the volume of radioactive particles rereleased
by wildfires in the CEZ is difficult to manage and even harder to insure.
Wildfires in the CEZ
On 26 April 1986, the explosion and subsequent open-air graphite fire at
Reactor No. 4 of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) contaminated the soil, water, and atmosphere alike with radioactive material at a
rate equivalent to twenty times that released during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Higginbotham 2019). For nine days, the fire produced
updrafts that lifted deadly plumes of radioactive material into the atmosphere, which wind and rain distributed over (what was then) the western