Becoming an airline passenger: Body, luggage, and documents

Abstract

This paper deploys a relational-material approach for tracing the assembly of passengers as they move through airports and use its series of passage points. While many studies analyse airport mobility and passengers' experiences, few do so with the question of subjectivity as their main theoretical focus. Rather than treating subjectivity as an epiphenomenon or alternatively as a myriad of spatio-sensual experiences, we treat the subjectivity of airline passengers as a product and an achievement: a work of assembly which requires the skilful coordination of body, luggage, and documents. We introduce the notion of 'mobility capital' as a vital ingredient in this process of active assembly: learnt variations and improvisations while interacting with the architecture of airports and with the materially embedded regulation of civil aviation account for the process of acquiring the subjectivity of airline passengers and for the variance among them.

The Dys-Appearing Fat Body: Bodily Intensities and Fatphobic Sociomaterialities When Flying While Fat

“…Air travel is highly differentiated, bodies are funneled into different spaces according to class, nationality, perceived threat, etc. and bodies are expected to be docile, to obey rules about how to behave, to be open to scrutiny and surveillance (Adey, 2008;Shilon and Shamir, 2016). Power relations are absolute here.…”

Conspicuous Mobility: The Status Dimensions of the Global Passport Hierarchy

“…Disparities in travel freedom are also manifested at airports and other ports of entry. Passengers with lower-value passports face stricter questioning and are more likely to be denied entry or selected for additional inspection (Neumayer 2006;Salter 2006;Shilon and Shamir 2016). In many countries, border crossings have separate lines for different categories of passengers.…”

“…Existing studies have shown that travelers attach status implications to differences in travel competence associated with experience, ethnicity, or spending power. Frequent air travelers show their high status by moving through the airport with speed, confidence, and ease (Shilon and Shamir 2016). Passengers who are ethnically profiled for extra questioning experience the different treatment as humiliating (Hasisi, Margalioth, and Orgad 2012).…”

Airport Design and Situational Passenger Flows and Practices: Exploring Design as a Method in Copenhagen Airport

“…From the (aero)mobilities perspective, 3 studies of passenger behaviour and experience have revealed the changeable and ambiguous nature of passengers and the multiplicity of their practices socio-material interactions and experiences within the context of travelling (Cresswell 2006;Adey 2009;Kesselring 2009;Lassen 2009;Shilon and Shamir 2016). For instance, different people make sense of the airport space and inhabit it differently (e.g.…”