The deep interface of the effectuated voluminous territories: gates, smooth and striated spaces, and the royal science in the Air Silk Road

While the scholarship on volumetric territory is now gaining momentum, our knowledge of the in-betweens of spheres is still limited. This paper studies the voluminous territory through a new lens: the deep interface as a destabilizing ontology that invites, enables and disciplines movements across the different spheres. The conceptualization of the deep interface unfolds in three layers: (1) an effective territory that treats territory as formed by the mobility of disruptive object–spaces; (2) a deep interface constituted by a series of gates distributed in various spheres for the succession of a relay along particular paths; and (3) the striation of smooth space by imposing the ‘royal science’ on the moving things, translating voluminous space to be a vector of political–rational calculations. Tracing the moving aeroplane as the disruptive object–space, we demonstrate how the three gates of the Air Silk Road scheme, Dara Sakor Airport and the mangrove forests constitute a deep interface after the construction of their interdependence by instantly allied forces. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.