Politics at the Airport

2008

Mark B. Salter, editor

Establishes the airport as a crucial site in the rise of the surveillance state

Politics at the Airport brings together leading scholars to examine how airports both shape and are shaped by current political, social, and economic conditions. It broadens our understanding of the connections among power, space, and migration and establishes the airport as critical to the study of politics and global life.

Contributors: Peter Adey, Colin J. Bennett, Gillian Fuller, Francisco R. Klauser, Gallya Lahav, David Lyon, Benjamin J. Muller, Valérie November, Jean Ruegg.

Airport books tend to be general in tone and overly glamorize the airport as a global node and site of transnationalism—Politics at the Airport tempers such optimistic readings with a much needed discussion on the politics of mobility, surveillance, and control.

Tim Cresswell, author of On the Move and Place: A Short Introduction

Few sites are more symbolic of both the opportunities and vulnerabilities of contemporary globalization than the international airport.

Politics at the Airport brings together leading scholars to examine how airports both shape and are shaped by current political, social, and economic conditions. Focusing on the ways that airports have become securitized, the essays address a wide range of practices and technologies—from architecture, biometric identification, and CCTV systems to “no-fly lists” and the privatization of border control—now being deployed to frame the social sorting of safe and potentially dangerous travelers.

This provocative volume broadens our understanding of the connections among power, space, bureaucracy, and migration while establishing the airport as critical to the study of politics and global life.

Contributors: Peter Adey, Colin J. Bennett, Gillian Fuller, Francisco R. Klauser, Gallya Lahav, David Lyon, Benjamin J. Muller, Valérie November, Jean Ruegg.

Mark B. Salter is associate professor of political science at the University of Ottawa.

Airport books tend to be general in tone and overly glamorize the airport as a global node and site of transnationalism—Politics at the Airport tempers such optimistic readings with a much needed discussion on the politics of mobility, surveillance, and control.

Tim Cresswell, author of On the Move and Place: A Short Introduction