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Every five seconds someone dies prematurely from air pollution (UN, 2019). Environmental degradation, however, is not limited to the air above alone, but also affects the conditions of life underneath the surface. Black lung disease (pneumoconiosis), a respiratory condition, is by far the most common occupational illness in China today. Official reports suggest that over half a million people, almost exclusively rural migrants, live with the incurable disease. The real number could be 10 times as high (SCMP, 2021). The respiratory condition is a powerful reminder of the shared geological intimacy that exists between the bodies of miners and the materiality that constitutes the enveloping atmospheres of the underworld.Inspired by Hawkins’ (2020b, p. 4) idea of the “underground’s imaginative force” and the so-called “geologic turn” (Ellsworth & Kruse, 2013), this paper explores the politics of subterranean atmospheres in China by problematising the relationship between the ground above and the ground below. I analyse this “geologic politics” (Clark, 2013) through the artwork of filmmaker Zhao Liang and the painter Yang Shaobin, both contemporary artists working on subterranean lives, bodies, emotions and atmospheres. Through their art of the subterranean, its environment, lived experience, embodiment and the specificity and intimacy of its materiality, I capture a politics that challenges false binaries of a separate above and below. Toutes les cinq secondes une personne meurt prématurément à cause de la pollution atmosphérique (ONU, 2019). Cependant, la dégradation de l’environnement ne se limite pas à l’air ambiant, elle affecte également les conditions de vie sous la surface terrestre. La maladie du poumon noir (pneumoconiose), une affection respiratoire, est actuellement la première maladie professionnelle en Chine. Selon les rapports officiels, plus d’un demi-million de personnes, presque exclusivement des migrants des zones rurales, vivent avec cette maladie incurable. En réalité, le nombre réel pourrait être dix fois plus élevé (SCMP, 2021). La « condition respiratoire » est un rappel puissant de l’intimité géologique partagée qui existe entre les corps des mineurs et la matérialité qui constitue les atmosphères enveloppantes du monde souterrain.Inspiré par les idées de la « force imaginative du sous-sol » (Hawkins 2020b, p. 4) et du surnommé « tournant géologique » (Ellsworth & Kruse, 2013), cet article explore la politique des atmosphères souterraines en Chine au travers une problématisation des la relation entre le sol au-dessus et le sol au-dessous. J’analyse cette « politique géologique » (Clark, 2013) à travers les œuvres du cinéaste Zhao Liang et du peintre Yang Shaobin, deux artistes contemporains qui travaillent sur les vies, les corps, les émotions et les atmosphères souterraines. À travers leur art du souterrain, de son environnement, de l’expérience vécue, de l’incarnation et de la spécificité et de l’intimité de sa matérialité, je saisis une politique qui défie l’interprétation binaire d’un dessus et d’un dessous séparés.

The concepts of the production and representation of space and place are receiving an increasing amount of attention in both the humanities and the social sciences. This paper will use the theoretical knowledge that has and continues to be produced on the subject to come \ud to a better understanding of the spatial origins that constitute the place that is Chinese nation \ud state. The analysis of spatial practises should shed light on the question what China is and wherefrom it receives the legitimacy for its social-spatial integrity. \ud It will be argued that the arrival of modernity and its universal measurement of time and space were essential components in the gradual transformation from ethnocentric place to a territorially defined nation state. The political production and organisation of space employed for the formation of the nation state is argued to be the consequence of the same (globalising) logic that is now said to question and undermine its territorial integrity. \ud Modernity and globalisation are in this paper, in other words, considered to be similar, if not identical, spatial-temporal concepts that both help to create and destruct places. This is arguably best visible in the constant production and reproduction of the most sophisticated of spatial organisations: our cities. I will argue that despite the changing face of cities, of which the disputed contemporary "globalisation" is but one of many, the spatial reality that is the modern nation state remains the same. This is not to return to an orthodox realist interpretation but to understand the very "stuff" that space and place are made of.

This thesis entails an analysis of the relationship between space and politics in the\ud construction and legitimisation of modern China. The thesis argues that the production\ud of space has since the onset of modernity in China, in itself very much a spatial\ud process, played a substantial yet, largely unexplored and academically\ud unacknowledged role in both the construction of the nation state and the legitimisation\ud of political ideologies. I wish to show that the production of modern space has since\ud the mid-17th century played an increasingly vital role in the abstract concretisation\ud and the everyday diffusion of the geographic imagination of the Chinese nation state.\ud The state, in other words, legitimises its existence through the reification of space.\ud This thesis contributes to a historical and spatial understanding of the role of\ud geographies of power in creating an alternative understanding of what China is and\ud how it is (re-)produced spatially. Such an understanding problematises the realised\ud abstraction of the Chinese nation state and politicises the production and\ud representation of space in China. The thesis thus questions notions of Chinese\ud essentialism, Chinese history, Chinese architecture and other expressions of state\ud spaces. The position that this thesis takes is that the production of space gives form\ud and meaning to the political. The thesis looks at a variety of spatial techniques of\ud power by analysing the politics of cartography, urban planning, architecture and other\ud forms of production of space. By emphasising the politics of space, this thesis is a\ud work of political geography on the subject of modern Chinese state space. This thesis\ud comprises six chapters, an introduction and a conclusion.