Making Connections: Travel, Technology, and Global Air Travel Networks

Ken W. Parker*

Centre for Social Change Research School of Humanities and Human Services

Queensland University of Technology

Paper presented to the Social Change in the 21stCentury Conference

Centre for Social Change Research

Queensland University of Technology 22 November 2002

* I am very grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by an anonymous reviewer. I would also like to thank the members of the E113 research lab for their

ongoing humour and patience.

Introduction Globalisation is one of the great buzzwords of the contemporary era. It is

often applied, manipulated, and misused. Whether in scholarly texts, student essays,

or on the CNN business morning news, it seems that the concept of globalisation is

inescapable. For better or for worse, this paper will contribute to the plethora of texts

that examine the increasing interconnectedness that the various globalising processes

have caused. In particular, this paper will concentrate on one aspect of globalisation,

that of global mobility. Globalisation and global mobility are inextricably linked.

Passengers on international flights are like any other global flow. Like capital,

commodities, or information they traverse national boundaries. Moreover, like

capital, commodities, and information they require complex structures and systems to

enable them to manipulate, albeit briefly, the constraints of space and time.

This paper will investigate several alternative models for understanding the

global air travel networks. In particular, this paper will review three theoretical

models of global mobility. The first two models have formed the predominant model

in academic discourse, whereas the third model, a relatively innovative and radical

perspective, will be presented as an alternative that can alleviate some of the

shortcomings of the first two models. The first model can be labelled the global

network model. The global network model has become popular through the recent

writings of Urry (2000c; 2000b; 2001a; 2001d), Smith and Timberlake (1995; 1998;

2001), and Gottdiener (2001), although its heritage lies in the older work on networks

produced by Castells (1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a). This paper will argue that

while the global network model may be popular, it is too abstract, and in the case of

Urry (2000c; 2000b; 2001d; 2001a) too theoretical, to provide a complete

understanding of the complexities of global mobility. Indeed, as shall be

demonstrated in the first section of this paper, quantitative explorations of passenger

numbers (Smith and Timberlake 1995; 1998; 2001; Shin and Timberlake 2000;

Taylor 2000; 2001) predictive analyses (Makimoto and Manners 1997), and overly

theoretical perspectives (Urry 2000c; 2000b; 2001d; 2001a; Lash and Urry 1994;

Castells 1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a; Gottdiener 2001; Pascoe 2001) only

provide a partial and superficial account of global mobility. The second model of

global mobility to be discussed in this paper can be conceptualised as the non-place

model. This second section will describe the various theories that make up the non-

place model. The non-place model of global mobility employed by theorists such as

Auge (1995; 1999), Tomlinson (1999), Rosler (1998); Brambilla (1999), and Aubert-

Gamet and Cova (1999) asserts that global mobility can be understood through spaces

such as airport lounges, railway stations, hotel lobbies, and other spaces that facilitate

the transfer of passengers around the world. This section will argue that while, on the

surface, the non-place model may be appealing it is, once again, far too abstract and

theoretical. The third component of this paper will detail an alternative and somewhat

radical way of understanding of global mobility. This model, which is derived from

Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Actor Network Theory (ANT), will be

presented as a viable alternative to the popular conceptions of global mobility

presented in the opening sections of this paper. Rather than providing an abstract

understanding of global mobility, the mundane model (as it has been labelled for this

paper), examines the everyday, routine combinations of people and machines that

allow global mobility occur. As the third section of this paper will demonstrate, the

mundane model is not interested in exploring the possible outcomes of increased

global mobility, nor does it investigate the implications of global interconnectedness

for the concepts of identity or the nation. Instead, the mundane model limits its

interest to describing systems and processes to provide a more complete

understanding that other theorists may, if they choose, use to develop more theoretical

or predictive models.

The Global Network Model “In the United States (Alone) there are more than two million air travellers daily on

over 20,000 flights. (Gottdiener 2001: 1)”

This quotation by American cultural sociologist, Gottdiener (2001), perhaps

embodies the weakness in what can be termed the global network model. In this

quotation, global mobility (or in the case of Gottdiener’s American-centric text,

American mobility) is presented as an almost unimaginably large system. While the

figure of two million passengers a day is amazing and in a sense, quite significant, it

is, on the other hand, sociologically and analytically weak. Gottdiener’s statement

shares the problems of much of the global network model material. It is interesting,

exciting, and in some cases thought provoking, but upon closer inspection it seems

quite hollow, abstract, and dare I say it, decorative. In this respect, the global network

model for understanding global mobility is quite similar to the world maps on display

in most travel agencies. I refer to those world maps that display the various major

airline routes in a simple two-dimensional fashion. There is no complexity in the

representation of global mobility in the travel agents’ map. There is no sense of the

incredible complexity of structures and procedures that enable travellers to cross

national boundaries and challenge time and space. What the travel agent’s map

provides is a flat, simple, self-explanatory, and easy understanding of a global system.

Similarly, popular accounts of global mobility inform us of a simple world of

interconnectedness, where flows of people, finance, ideas, terror, and commodities,

traverse boundaries and the tyranny of distance as if the world was flat, seamless,

simple, and easy. However, the processes that facilitate global mobility are not

simple, easy, or seamless.

The view that the global air network is fluid and seamless is most clearly

articulated in Castells’ (1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a) work on the ‘network

society’. For him, mobility is a product of the capitalist driven global network

structure. However, Castells rarely focuses on the specific systems and operations

that allow that structure to exist. Instead, Castells presents an abstract understanding

of network structures, that at times, seems to owe a great deal to science fiction works

such as The Matrix or Terminator 2. For Castells (2000c, pp 15 - 16; 2000d, pp 695 -

696) the network is viewed almost as the perfect machine, an inhuman actor with no

moral or aesthetic dispositions. As Castells (2000c, pp 15- 16) explains,

“All there is in a network is useful and necessary for the existence of the network.

What is not in the network does not exist from the network’s perspective, and thus be

either ignored (if it is not relevant to the network’s task), or eliminated (if it is

competing in goals or in performance)… Networks, as social forms, are value-free or

neutral. They can equally kill or kiss: nothing personal.”

How such an abstract view of the global air-network structure can assist in our

understanding of the complexities of global mobility seems quite unclear. Just as

unhelpful is Castells’ (1996: 412 - 415) discussion of the ‘space of flows’. The ‘space

of flows’ can be understood as the tangible and material components of Castells’

(1996) network society. The ‘space of flows’ is made up of the fibre optic cables and

satellite transmissions, the international airports, hotels and hub-cities, and finally, the

human element, the political and business elites who traverse the world with ease.

The missing element in Castells’ (1996) interpretation is how the system actually

works. How does this autonomous network structure control and organise the various

components within the ‘space of flows’? How do the various elements within the

space of flow coexist, interrelate, and possibly, cooperate? For the greater part,

Castells (1996) leaves these types of questions unanswered.

While Castells (1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a) is the theorist most

associated with the global network model, he is by no means the only theorist to

develop understandings of global mobility based on the network model. A host of

theorists like Keeling (1995), Rimmer (1998), Beaverstock et al. (2002), Song (2000)

Smith and Timberlake (1995; 1998; 2001) have examined the network structures that

connect the world’s cities. Much of the focus of this work has been dedicated to

quantitative studies of passenger numbers. For example, Smith and Timberlake

(1995; 1998; 2001) have conducted studies of passenger numbers to determine which

cities are most important within the global air network. On one level such studies

provide an important conceptual model for global processes. However, on another

level the research of Keeling (1995), Rimmer (1998), Beaverstock et al. (2002), Song

(2000) Smith and Timberlake (1995; 1998; 2001) has significant limitations. By

concentrating on broad trends, these studies have tended to provide a limited, macro

understanding of global mobility. Like Castells (1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a),

Keeling (1995), Rimmer (1998), Beaverstock et al. (2002), Song (2000) Smith and

Timberlake (1995; 1998; 2001) have not examined the specific processes, operations,

and events that enable the interconnections between ‘world cities’ to occur and run

effectively.

The final contributor of note to the global network model of global mobility is

the British sociologist John Urry (1990b; 1990a; 1994a; 1994b; 1995; 1998; 1999;

2000c; 2000a; 2000b; 2001a; 2001b; 2001d; 2001c). For Urry, writing with his

occasional collaborator Lash (and Urry 1994: 252),

“Modern society is a society of the move.”

More recently, Urry (2000c; 2000b) has called for a shift in academic interest from

society to mobility. For Urry, sociology should focus on the flows of people,

information, finance, and commodities that traverse the globe constantly rather than

interrogate concept of the ‘social’ for its own value. As Urry (2000c: 1) explained

sociology must examine,

“How the development of various global ‘networks and flows’ undermines

endogenous social structures which have generally been taken within sociological

discourse to possess the powers to reproduce themselves.”

In order to understand the new world of mobility, Urry (1998; 2000c; Urry 2000b)

adopts a series of analytic descriptors including flows, scapes, networks, and fluids.

Applying these terms, Urry argues that sociologists must analyse the abstract flow of

material entities such as travellers, money, goods, referred to as ‘scapes’ across stable

global networks and their more unpredictable and variable cousins global fluids.

Unfortunately, Urry’s various analytical tools possess many of the same deficiencies

as Castells (1996) concept of the ‘space of flows’. Like the ‘space of flows’ (Castells

1996) Urry’s mobile subjects are described in abstract terms. How the flows of

people, ideas, and commerce manage to subvert time and space, and negotiate

national boundaries is assumed to be self-explanatory. Once again, Urry’s analysis of

global mobility has similarities to the travel agent’s map. In Urry’s interpretation,

scapes flow almost magically across predetermined routes, just as the imaginary

aircraft, bounce from one point to another. Indeed, both the travel agent’s map and

the theories of the global air network model represent global mobility as if it were in

two-dimensions. Both representations, it could be argued, lack depth.

Non-Places: Spaces in Transit Driving towards the Brisbane Domestic and International airports on Airport Drive it

is perhaps easy to get a feel for the non-place and transitory spaces understanding of global

mobility. Driving on Airport Drive can be a surreal experience. The two lane separated

highway is lined by what appears to be wetland forest. Advertising billboards provide the

only sense of location. However, almost all of the billboards that line the road refer to global

brands or destinations and thus fail to provide any real sense of place. The only break in the

border of marsh-like trees comes in the form of unmarked buildings, which one would

assume, serves some kind of purpose in relaying radar of communications messages. Then on

the far side of the road appears the distinctive BP logo of a British Petroleum Service Station.

However, its arrival does little to provide any sense of place or location. Approaching the

International Terminal structure it seems that drivers could be almost anywhere in the world –

no location, no place, always in transit.

The example of Brisbane Airport Drive demonstrates both the strengths and

weaknesses of the non-place / transitory space model. While interesting and

appealing, the non-place / transitory space model is abstract, conceptual, and highly

literary. The non-place \ transitory space model of global mobility, as conceived in

this paper, is not a single or coherent model, but rather, a pastiche of several theorists

who share a similar understanding of the sites of transit. For theorists such as Auge

(1995; 1999); Rosler (1998); Brambilla (1999); Aubert-Gamet and Cova (1999);

Crang (1998; 2002); Arefi (1999); Kunstler (1993); Tomlinson (1999); Makimoto and

Manners (1997); Rowley and Slack (1999); Cosgrove (1999); Gottdiener (2001)

increasing global mobility has created a new type of space within contemporary

society. This new form of space can be conceptualised as a non-place (Auge 1995;

1999) or transitory space (Rosler 1998) and represents a kind of spatial equivalent of

anti-matter. For the likes of Auge (1995; 1999) and Rosler (1998) global mobility

must be understood through the new spaces that facilitate global flows.

American urban sociologists such as Webber (1964), Jacobs (1961), Cox

(1968), and Relph (1976; 1981) originally deployed the concept of non-place to

describe the inauthentic, repetitive, formless, and impersonal landscape of American

suburbia. More recently the term non-place has been applied to various homogenised

spaces such as highways, service stations, airports, and supermarkets (Crang 1998;

Auge 1995; 1999; Prato and Trivero 1985; Arefi 1999; Kunstler 1993). For authors

such as Relph (1976: 92, 118), Auge (1995), Kunstler (1993: 78), and Castells (1996:

417) the adoption of uniform construction techniques and the proliferation of the

International school of architecture has created a largely homogenised landscape. As

Boorstin (1961: 94), Rosler (1998), Crang (2002), Rowley and Slack (1999),

Tomlinson (1999: 6), and Brambilla (1999) note, the standardised nature of non-

places is no more clearer than in the examples of airports where an atmosphere of

‘nowhere’ is maintained no matter where the physical location of the airport may be.

Many non-place theorists contend that non-places are characterised by their

impersonal nature. In particular, Auge (1995: 77 – 78, 94, 100 - 102) suggests that

through the proliferation of non-human actors, like ATMs and vending machines and

the increased preference for formalised, contract based social interaction, non-places

have become non-relational and solitary spaces. For Auge (1995) in non-places

simple commands like ‘insert card’, ‘left lane must exist’, ‘no smoking’, and ‘now

boarding’ have replaced ‘real’ social interactions. As Boswell (1997: 3) suggests,

“These faceless texts address no one in particular because in the non-places there

is no individual to speak of.”

Moreover both Auge (1995: 103), and Aubert-Gamet and Cova (1999: 40) suggest

that the ‘disembodied’ nature of service delivery in non-places causes the temporary

suspension of individual identity. As Auge (1995: 103) suggests,

“The space of non-places creates neither singular identity nor relations; only

solitude, and similitude.”

While most authors are reluctant to agree with the claims of Auge (1995), and

Aubert-Gamet and Cova (1999) that identity is suspended within non-places, most

concur that non-places are spaces of limited or formalised social interaction and

isolation. For example, Benko (1997: 24) and Castells (1996) suggest it is almost

possible for travellers to journey across the globe without meeting or interacting with

anyone. Moreover, Crang (2002: 569), MacCannell (1992), Arefi (1999), and even

Martinotti (1999: 171), who are otherwise are critical of Auge’s (1995) work, also

assert that non-places have resulted in the contractualisation of social relations and the

weakening of communal ties.

Within the relevant literature, non-places are commonly viewed as a type of

transitory space. For Castells (1996), Urry (2000c: 63), Tomlinson (1999), and Auge

(1995), non-places act as a safe, seamless, and homogenous passage for international

travellers. Through the implementation of placeless transitory spaces, they suggest

that travellers can flow effortlessly across the world in a sheltered, cultureless

environment almost entirely devoid of any sense of locality. As Castells (1996: 417)

asserts,

“…There is the construction of a (relatively) secluded space across the world along

the connecting lines of the spaces of flows: international hotels whose decoration,

from the design of the room to the color of the towels, is similar all over the world to

create a sense of familiarity with the inner world, while inducing abstraction from the

surrounding world; airports’ VIP lounges, designed to maintain the distance vis-a-vis

society in the highways of space of flows…”

Moreover, Tomlinson (1999: 6 – 7) and Urry (2000c: 63) agree, asserting that

transitory non-places minimise the cultural differences for (Western) travellers. For

Tomlinson (1999: 7) the homogeneity of non-places allows businesspeople to act

independently of context, safe with the assurance that they will always have CNN,

international cuisine, or a fax close at hand no matter where they are in the world.

Furthermore, Auge (1995) asserts, only fleeting glimpses of locality might be

experienced in non-places, an orchid-seller in a Thai airport (: 98), the prevention of

alcohol consumption in planes flying over Saudi Arabia (: 116) or the landscapes of

the French countryside while speeding along an expressway (: 97). Otherwise, Auge

(1995: 106) suggests, travellers in a foreign land can feel comforted by familiar multi-

national consumer goods that line service stations, hotel mini-bars, and airport duty

free stores.

While the non-place discourse may be appealing, interesting, and absorbing, it

is far too abstract, conceptual and theoretical to provide a comprehensive account of

global mobility. As Martinotti (1999) points out that much of the appeal of the non-

place literature is derived from our familiarity with the non-place spaces. Martinotti

(1999) asserts that we all know the feelings associated with being in the so-called

non-places. We have all experienced airport departure lounges, hotels, and

supermarkets and thus feel a rapport with those theorists who discuss them.

Unfortunately, while we may feel a rapport with the concept of non-places, the

research into non-places has failed to contribute significantly to the study of global

mobility. The examinations of non-places as transit points in the analyses of Castells

(1996); Auge (1995; 1999); Tomlinson (1999); Urry (2000c); Benko (1997); Aubert-

Gamet and Cova (1999); and Makimoto and Manners (1997) rarely go beyond

descriptions of their features to detail the wider implications of these transitory

spaces. These authors appear happy to accept the concept of non-places without

detailed consideration. How non-places construct, ‘A seamless and effortless’ (Urry

2000c: 63) ‘Manufactured form of proximity experience(d) as universality’

(Tomlinson 1999: 7) requires a more detailed examination.

While Auge (1995: 86) notes that, “The traveller’s space may thus be the

archetype of non-place,” he too is guilty of providing a vivid description of the

ephemeral spaces of super-modernity without examining the role of non-places within

the network of mobility and travel. Instead, Auge (1995) merely asserts that the

uniform, impersonal, and lonely spaces of super-modernity are becoming more

pervasive in contemporary society, and concludes, as he admits paradoxically, that

given the proliferation of these new spaces, that an ‘ethnology of solitude will be

required’. In contrast, Crang (2002: 573) argues that an understanding of non-places

as spaces-in-between must go beyond rhetorics of uninterrupted flows. Crang (2002)

suggests that spaces like airport departure lounges must be analysed as complex social

spaces operating with systems of power and identity.

A Mundane Approach: A STS / ANT Model The abstract nature of the global network and non-place models of global

mobility has resulted in the need for an alternative, less conceptual, more concrete or

material approach to understanding global mobility. This alternative approach would

seek to understand the multiple processes that occur across macro and micro levels. It

would take into account that material entities such as machines, electronics, and other

‘technologies’, are equally important as human actors in enabling the transition of

people across the globe. This alternative approach could have various names. The

theoretical heritage of the proposed model is drawn from Science and Technology

Studies (STS) and Actor Network Theory (ANT). However, the alternative model

does not embrace all STS or ANT concepts. Instead, for the purposes of this paper

the new perspective can be labelled as the ‘mundane approach’. As shall be explored

in this section, rather than offering grand and highly theoretical understanding of

global mobility, the ‘mundane approach’ seeks to identify the boring, everyday,

routine, but essential operations, processes, systems, and technologies, that enable

global mobility to occur. These processes and operations that are mundane taken for

granted, and have (at least in sociological literature), been regularly ignored. It is

proposed that a detailed understanding of global mobility must examine the routine

processes that facilitate global mobility. A failure to understand these mundane yet

essential processes renders other perspectives incomplete and threatens to malign

them to the status of ‘armchair or decorative’ sociology.

As mentioned previously, the ‘mundane approach’ draws much of its

inspiration, direction, and theoretical concepts from Science and Technology Studies

and Actor Network Theories. STS and ANT have been important, but often

misunderstood, contributions to the social sciences. In some ways, STS and ANT are

quite radical and confrontational. Advocates of the models question whether the

‘social’ world should have primacy within sociological inquiry and challenge

traditional understandings of spatial formation, networks, and power. Firstly, both

ANT and STS argue that the social sciences have ignored for too long the role played

by non-humans actors (Latour 1988; 1990; 1992; 1997; Callon 1986a; 1986b; Law

1986; 1994; 2000; Law and Hetherington 1999; Law and Mol 1995). STS and ANT

literature often refer to these non-humans as ‘actants’. Actants can be virtually

anything, from hinges on a door (Latour 1988), to seatbelts (Latour 1990), to sea

scallops (Callon 1986b), or sailing vessels (Law 1986). STS and ANT advocates

assert that without these ‘actants’ society would not exist. So to understand the social

world, they suggest, sociologists must also understand the heterogenous materials that

make up society. In an attempt to establish sociology as a legitimate discipline, social

scientists have made the mistake of promoting the ‘social’ within the social sciences

at the expense of understanding the operation of the real world. Indeed, while social

theorists have often been critical of economists and biologists for treating social

relations as if they occurred in a vacuum, social scientists are also guilty of a similar

offence. For so many sociologists, social relations also occur in a vacuum, a vacuum

where only the social exists. Callon and Latour (1981) examine the absence of

material objects in their discussion of the differences between baboon and human

society. As Callon and Latour (1981) point out, in order to maintain control of their

patriarchal and heavily authoritarian society, male baboons rely on their social

standing, strength, and concentration. The baboon lives in an entirely ‘social’ society.

The only tools of control and discipline are his strength and mind. In contrast, Callon

and Latour (1981) assert, in human societies, nonhumans actors can be deployed as

agents of discipline and control. Fences, barricades, pamphlets, guns, tanks, and

timetables are all examples of material actants that assist humans in the control and

organisation of society.

The focus on material objects is only one component of STS and ANT. Yet it

provides the basis for the mundane approach proposed by this paper. In order to

understand global mobility, sociologists must recognise the combination of humans

and nonhumans that enable global mobility. Increasingly, sociologists of global

mobility are beginning to acknowledge the role of actants in global mobility and

construct analyses that could be labelled ‘mundane’1. In particular, the growing

sociological literature on air traffic control and management has emerged as a primary

example of the mundane approach. Studies by authors such as Cushing (1994),

Hopkin (1995), Sanne (1999), Gras et al. (1994), Suchman (1993), Harper and

Hughes (1993), and Weick (1990) examine the combination of humans and

nonhumans in the challenging and mysterious world of air traffic control (ATC).

While mundane, in the sense that these studies focus on the routine procedures of air

traffic control, these studies also provide a fascinating and absorbing analysis of

operations that thousands of passengers rely on everyday. Without the elaborate and

precise systems of air traffic control the global air travel network would grind to a

halt. As Cushing (1994) and Weick (1990) demonstrate, mistakes in air traffic control

are often punished with disastrous and tragic consequences, yet, as global mobility

increases, the pressure to ‘Push Tin’2 also builds (Harper and Hughes 1993; Sanne

1 The term mundane used here does not denote a negative connation but rather stresses the focus of the papers on everyday processes and operations. 2 ATC operators, to describe the pressure from airports and airlines to coordinate an increasingly number of aircraft in a decreasing amount of time, coined the term ‘pushing tin’. ‘Pushing Tin’ also became the name of a Hollywood film that dealt whose characters struggled to deal with the challenges of their job as ATCs.

1999). While the studies by Cushing (1994), Hopkin (1995), Sanne (1999), Gras et

al. (1994), Suchman (1993), Harper and Hughes (1993), and Weick (1990) employ a

range of methodological techniques, they all examine the air traffic controller and air

traffic control equipment working together. Through their research, we are provided

with a detailed and comprehensive understanding of how a specific and integral

component of the global air travel network functions. The research of Harper and

Hughes (1993), Sanne (1999), Gras et al. (1994), Suchman (1993), Harper and

Hughes (1993), and Weick (1990) informs us on how ATC enables global mobility to

occur. Their research on ATC demonstrates how a component of the global air

network is managed, how it is coordinated, and how it is ordered (Kendall and

Wickham 2001).

ATC is of course only one component of the multitude of operations and

processes that make up the single entity referred to as the global air travel network.

To obtain a comprehensive understanding of global mobility using the mundane

approach, similar studies must be conducted on areas including airport security;

customs; baggage handling; aircraft repair and refuelling; radar systems and

communications; departure lounges; and the processes of piloting. At present I am

developing a mundane study on systems of passports, visas, and Electronic Travel

Advisories. Passports and Visas are essential element in the ordering and

management of global mobility. Yet as O'Byrne (2001: 399) notes little sociological

research has examined the passport or visa. For sociologists to understand

comprehensively the complex world of global mobility and travel we must examine

the previously ignored role of apparatuses like travel documents. In particular,

sociologists of travel and mobility must analyse the purpose of travel documents, how

they are processed, and how they are allocated. In the specific field of passports,

visas, and ETAs there is a plethora of official texts detailing the procedures and

operation of travel documentation. By conducting document analyses of texts like the

Manual of Australian Passport Issue, the Electronic Travel Authority System Manual,

or Document 93033 of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an

understanding of how travel documents assist global mobility to function can be

achieved. For example, by employing a document analysis of ICAO’s (2002)

Security Standards for Machine Readable Travel Documents, the mundane approach

can be provide insights into the ways that organisations use travel documents to order

the potential chaos of global movements. The ICAO (2002) document describes a

multitude of security measures employed within passports to prevent the creation of

counterfeiting of travel documents. For instance, taking just one passage, the ICAO

(2002: 4) document asserts that the paper from which a passport is constructed should

be a

“UV dull paper, or a substrate with a controlled response to UV, such that when

illuminated by UV light it exhibits a fluorescence distinguishable in colour from the

blue used in commonly available fluorescent materials.”

While on one hand, this passage seems trivial, on the other, it informs us about the

processes that coordinate global mobility. The use of UV paper is significant because

it reveals much about the operations of those who manage global movements. If a

passport is required to have UV sensitive paper then it can be assumed that systems

have been established to verify the paper used. Moreover, it informs us that these

established systems are of an intensive nature reinforcing the nature of global mobility

as a highly ordered and managed structure. While the example provided is very

3 Document 9303, produced by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) details the international standard for machine readable travel documents.

preliminary and tenuous it is hoped that a comprehensive ‘mundane’ study of

passports, visas, and ETAs could contribute to our understanding of global mobility

and combat the abstract, theoretical conceptions of Auge (1995; 1999), Castells

(1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a), and Urry (1990b; 1990a; 1994a; 1994b; 1995;

1998; 1999; 2000c; 2000a; 2000b; 2001a; 2001b; 2001d; 2001c).

Conclusion This paper has examined three models for understanding global mobility. The

first two models described in this paper will viewed as the predominant interpretations

of global mobility. However, it was asserted that these two models are too abstract

and theoretical to provide comprehensive accounts of the global air travel network.

Instead a third, innovative model was proposed as an alternative to the popular

interpretations of global mobility. This alternative understanding of global mobility,

labelled the mundane approach, asserted that to develop a comprehensive

understanding of global mobility an account of the everyday, routine procedures and

operations that enable global mobility must be undertaken. The first model explored

in this paper was the global network model. This model most frequently associated

with the writings of Urry (1990b; 1990a; 1994a; 1994b; 1995; 1998; 1999; 2000c;

2000a; 2000b; 2001a; 2001b; 2001d; 2001c), Smith and Timberlake (1995; 1998;

2001), Gottdiener (2001), and Castells (1996; 2000b; 2000d; 2000c; 2000a) was

described and criticised. It was suggested that the global network models reliance on

quantitative studies of airport passenger numbers and speculative research into the

nature of global travel do not provide a sufficiently detailed account of global

mobility. The second model investigated in this paper was the non-place model

(Auge 1995; 1999; Tomlinson 1999; Rosler 1998; Brambilla 1999; Aubert-Gamet and

Cova 1999). Like the global network model, the non-place model was regarded as

being too abstract and theoretical. It was asserted that the appeal of the non-place

model is derived from people’s familiarity with non-places and transitory spaces

rather than the quality or sophistication of the analysis provided. Finally, this paper

discussed the ‘mundane approach’ to global mobility as an alternative model for

understanding the global air travel network. The ‘mundane approach’ was presented

as a diversion of STS and ANT studies that seek to understand the regular, ordinary,

and routine activities undertaken by humans and nonhumans that enable global

mobility to occur.

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The Global Network ModelNon-Places: Spaces in Transit“The space of non-places creates neither singular

A Mundane Approach: A STS / ANT ModelConclusion