The Animus of Cloud Seeding: Voluminous Extraction and the Earth’s Atmosphere as Vertical Farm

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Anthropological Forum

Publication Date

6-18-2026

Abstract

The literature on vertical and voluminous spaces analyzes primarily the lithosphere and the biosphere as spaces of extraction. However, ethnographies of cloud seeding can introduce a new perspective on extraction from the sky. In the UAE, the state exerts its vertical sovereignty by extracting from below, through its well-known oil industry, and, in recent decades, from above, through a thriving cloud-seeding program, the UAE Rain Enhancement Program. Using three years of ethnographic data, as a UAE-based anthropologist, I argue that ethnographies of cloud seeding engage concepts of obliqueness, voluminous remains, vertical state control, and territorial referentiality. The logic of rain enhancement presents clouds as a reserve of water, referencing water security, and by extension, national security. This enables territorial claim over atmospheric depth, making verticality a tool for state control. Rain enhancement actors in governance, science, and the industry frame the atmosphere not as inert space, but as voluminous, resource-rich matter, integrated within capitalist circuits.

ISSN

0066-4677

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Disciplines

Earth Sciences

Keywords

atmosphere, Cloudseeding, pilots, STS, UAE

Scopus ID

105042342548

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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