Breathing in the Global South

Panel proposed for ASLE 2025: Collective Atmospheres
July 8-11, 2025
University of Maryland, College Park

Some humans (and nonhumans) breathe more easily than others. In a world beset by poor air quality, lower-income communities across the Global North and South confront increasing rates of asthma, cancer, and infant mortality. This panel session focuses on Global South engagements with air, breath, atmosphere, pollution, and struggles for breathing justice. We welcome proposals (from any discipline) for papers or projects focused on issues such as: air pollution and air quality in the postcolonial world; corporate-state collusions that produce air pollution; how transportation, air conditioning, and other infrastructures interrelate with atmospheric challenges; environmental racism; ozone levels; urbanization; Indigenous or non-Western understandings of breath and atmosphere; representations of breath or air in literary and cultural texts; and/or Global South “atmospheres” understood more metaphorically.

Please submit abstracts of 300 words to Sarah Dimick and Ben Stanley. Please also include a brief bio (150 words). 

Deadline: December 10
Contact: Sarah Dimick and Ben Stanley
Email: sarah.dimick@northwestern.edu, bstanley@udel.edu