Secured and Sorted Mobilities: Examples from the Airport.

Abstract

Surveillance is increasingly focused upon mobility. Be it in cities, shopping malls or outdoor 'public' spaces, surveillance is now able to track and monitor peoples movements. In recent years the most diverse forms of surveillance have been found at airports, yet paradoxically these spaces remain largely invisible within surveillance studies literature. This paper discusses a taxonomy of surveillance at the airport where several scales of mobility intersect – the global movements of international travel to local scale terminal activity. These are put under surveillance by techniques such as the passport and modern CCTV technologies. This paper illustrates the surveillant sorting that is perhaps most illustrative of airport surveillance, where airports can be seen to act as filters (Lyon, 2003) to the mobilities that pass through them. Using an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach, trends to monitor the 'means of terrorism' are discussed in regard to the monitoring of objects and actors. The paper continues to critique the way by which we tend to focus chiefly upon the human subject of surveillance, often disregarding the surveillance of non-human actors.

Surveillance as Communicating Relational Messages: Advancing Understandings of the Surveilled Subject

“…For instance, the relevance of relational concerns during technologically mediated encounters warrant exploration. Surveillance at airports has only become increasingly technologically mediated since its inception (Adey 2003). Exploring how technologically mediated versus interpersonal interactions with surveillance administrators are associated with differential attention to relational concerns is a key future research direction that will cast further light on the surveilled subjects' experiences and subjectivities at airports, and potentially in relation to surveillance administered by law enforcement more broadly.…”

“…Research has discussed surveillance at airports and border crossings as administrators enacting social sorting (e.g., differentially facilitating ability and speed of movement for persons) (Adey 2003(Adey , 2004Lyon 2003). Possibilities of discrimination are a key concern associated with social sorting in these contexts.…”

Location-Based Services and Privacy in Airports

“…First and foremost, airports are special locations with regard to privacy. For many years, surveillance has been so prevalent in airports that we quietly accept it, as Adey [9] points out. Passengers are frequently asked to have their baggage examined, to take off their belt and shoes and they are used to technologies like CCTV cameras being part of an airport location.…”

Airport Redesign for Safety and Security: Case Studies of Three Scottish Airports

“…Information was on all Mayday/emergency calls made by passenger aircraft fl ying across Scotland from the period January 2000 to January 2007, and tested by Enoma and Allen (2007). Das (1983), Yin (1994), Kaplan and Norton (2001), Wiggins and Tymms (2001), Adey (2004) and Beatham et al (2004) have all contributed to the issue of performance measurement, safety and security as well as key performance indicators.…”