Atmospheric Citizenship

In Mumbai the sonic dimensions of place-making and religious life are deeply connected to the right to the city. For Twelver Shi‘i Muslims, who are marginal to both the city and the nation, public religious rituals and processions have long played very important roles in staging claims to the city. Investigating the sonic aspects of urban place-making, including its religious dimensions, this essay draws on an analytic of atmospheres in order to capture the powerful emotive dimensions of place-making through sonic performances. Through its coupling with the feltbody, the sonic plays a privileged role in giving urban locales a specific feel as belonging to particular groups, investing this feel with an air of facticity that is largely immune to discursive critique. This article focuses on ritual performances and processions among Twelver Shi‘i Muslims during the Islamic month of Muharram in order to analyze nondiscursive and atmospheric forms of citizenship.