Abstract/Summary

‘Volume’ is increasingly mobilised as a conceptual framework through which to engage, embrace and interrogate space in three-rather than two-dimensional terms. This includes attending to heights and depths and acknowledging that social and political lives do not play out across a flat surface. Whilst ‘volume’ literature is burgeoning, we argue that there is a need to take into account the politics of gentler iterations of the three dimensional. At present, work on volume in political geography is often articulated through the lens of state and military actors, and practices of conflict, control, and violence. Inspired by recent work in geography exploring ‘gentleness’ as both analytic frameworks and methodological sensibility, this paper complicates existing understandings of volume by foregrounding the gentle. In doing so, it makes two key contributions. First, it brings the analytic and sensibility of gentleness to bear on volume, providing a means to reapproach volume through terms that exceed state-centric accounts. Second, it interrogates the geopolitics of the gentle as it is found, circulates and is comprised in heights and depths, everyday spaces and unexpected practices alike. Through the case studies of Tibetan prayer flags and a rain playground, the article reconsiders the forceful and transformative politics of gentle/gentler volumes.