Airport as a ‘Border Condition’ or Please Mind Your Bounding

Abstract

After 9/11, the regulation of global mobility witnessed substantial changes. Suspicion of movement intensified and the need to detect, classify, and eventually stop any threat from outside became the priority of state authorities. As a consequence, national and international airports progressively assumed the role of biopolitical infrastructures. In the restless search for the "anomalous" and "irregular", not only luggage and possessions are subject to intense scrutiny; identities, histories, and finances are also inspected. By implementing sophisticated surveillance technologies, the airports reproduce several homeland security strategies, such as the control of cross-border movements and migration management. From this perspective, airport surveillance practices, as border structures, dynamically redefine and construct the relation between bodies in motion and material boundaries.