Subtle potentials as emancipatory forces? Recasting the micropolitics of risk and disaster management

Drawing on the philosophy of movement and processes, the theory of attention and critical disaster and risk studies, this paper explores how the ways of dealing with alterity such as volcanic toxicity involve enacting the emergence of subtle potentials. These subtle potentials are moments of pure transformation in which alternatives to an inescapable and homogeneous future are realised while their subtle nature brings them into the periphery of our collective and personal attention. Influenced by the work of cultural theorist Yves Citton, the paper argues that subtle potentials are activated through a modality of free-floating attention that allows those confronted with hazards and risk to reorient their focus through different rhythmic processes that distort the fatality of permanent volcanic emissions (PVEs). Building on these conceptual relations, the paper draws on three interrelated rhythmic tales that help us understand how these subtle potentials emerge and are intertwined in the wider fabric of a micropolitics of spatio-temporal displacement, which in turn helps us recast those seen as vulnerable to PVEs as vibrant political actors of the everyday. The paper concludes by highlighting the relevance of subtle potentials when working with communities affected by hazards and risk and argues for a more complex understanding of the processes involved in shaping the micropolitics of risk and disaster management.