Voluminous

Maritime borders: A reconsideration of state power and territorialities over the ocean

“…However, the processes by which maritime borders and state territorialities are reconfigured by different oceanic materialities have attracted less attention. This is despite Billé’s observation that “from the Arctic to the South China Sea, states are vying to secure sovereign rights over vast maritime stretches, undersea continental plates, shifting ice floes, and aerial volumes” (Billé, 2020: 1). Accordingly, bordering practices and ensuing territorial politics of state control over the ocean remain an issue worthy of sustained analysis by adherents of wet ontology approaches.…”

“…Maritime borders and the extensions of state’s sovereign claims “do not necessarily index an extension of sovereign territory” (Billé, 2020: 2). As such, discussions of ocean-going state power are situated in a zone of political complexity where territory and sovereignty are not necessarily coextensive.…”

“…Put simply, as they have recognized the importance of addressing maritime borders, border studies scholars have also recognized that analytical frameworks regarding terrestrial borders may not be an easy fit (Bear and Eden, 2008; Peters, 2014). As a result, theorizing maritime borders has required academics forge alternative theoretical and methodological approaches (Steinberg and Peters, 2015; Peters and Steinberg, 2019; Childs, 2020a; Billé, 2020; Weaver, 2020).…”

Three-dimensional policeman: Security, sovereignty and volumetric police power

“…While airpower obviously adds a vertical axis to policing’s flat territories, attending to the volume reminds that the cone or canopy extending down from the helicopter, megaphone or camera is not hollow, but rather a material space with its own atmospheres and contents. 4 Preferring voluminous to volumetric in order to emphasize lived spaces over abstract and measured qualities, geographer Franck Billé (2020: 13; see also Steinberg and Peters, 2015) underlines the lived relationality of social space, reminding that as: our bodies grate against the textured materiality of that purportedly empty space, as we choke on its dust, as our lungs struggle to fill with oxygen, and as our social lives become enmeshed in and demarcated by invisible electromagnetic fields, we are continually confronted with the textured voluminous presence of this space.…”

“… 2. Similarly, Franck Billé (2020: 2) recalls the Latin maxim, Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos , “Whoever’s is the soil, it is theirs all the way to Heaven and all the way to Hell.” …”