Paper short abstract

Based on ethnography and archives, this paper examines how polluted air in Dakar and Bargny is understood through different meanings of “atmosphere”: as bodily exposure to dust, as a planetary object of meteorological knowledge and as a lived social environment shaped by industry.

Paper long abstract

Air in Senegal often arrives as dust. In Dakar and Bargny, Saharan dust carried by Harmattan winds mixes with emissions from cement production and other industries. These particles reduce visibility and are widely associated with respiratory illness, raising questions about pollution and how air should be governed. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and newspaper archives from the 1970s onward, this paper examines how people and institutions understand polluted air through the concept of “atmosphere.” I argue that atmosphere operates in three different ways. First, atmosphere appears as a material condition of life. Residents describe the air as “irrespirable” and link dust to coughing and respiratory illness. In this sense, atmosphere is encountered through the body as air thickened by particulate matter. Second, atmosphere emerges as a planetary object of knowledge and governance. Newspaper coverage in Senegal of the 1989 Hague Declaration on the Protection of the Atmosphere shows how the country was drawn into emerging debates that framed the atmosphere as a shared global environmental concern. Today, institutions such as Senegal’s meteorological agency track Saharan dust through satellite imagery and forecasting models that situate West African atmospheric processes within wider planetary circulation. Third, atmosphere also refers to a shared social ambiance. In Bargny, polluted air has become a focus of protest and negotiations with industry, yet residents also describe an “ambiance” that sustains attachments to place. By tracing these different uses of atmosphere, the paper shows how air connects bodily exposure, planetary governance and ambiance through infrastructures operating across scales.