Politics at the Airport

Establishes the airport as a crucial site in the rise of the surveillance stateFew 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.