Anticipation, materiality, event : the Icelandic ash cloud disruption and the security of mobility.

Abstract

In this article we explore how the aerial mobilities disrupted by the Icelandic ash cloud were remarkably contingent upon a series of systems and technologies of anticipation and speculation that sit within wider nested logics of future-oriented or 'anticipatory' governance. Drawing together flexible and distributed forms of (self)-governance such as insurance and coordination, alongside other technologies and logics of anticipation, we explore how the event's disruption began to be organised. Suggesting that the ash cloud opens out the importance of material mobilities as they are conceived, known and managed, the paper poses further questions for how the mobilities of the future will unfold.