Empire in the Air: Speed, Perception, and Airline Travel in the AtlanticWorld.

Airspace;Empire;Atlantic World;British West Indies;Airline Travel;Speed;Anthropology and Archaeology;History (General);Social Sciences;Humanities;Anthropology and History

Bhimull, Chandra D.Hecht, Gabrielle ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Airspace;    Empire;    Atlantic World;    British West Indies;    Airline Travel;    Speed;    Anthropology and Archaeology;    History (General);    Social Sciences;    Humanities;    Anthropology and History;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/57716/bhimullc_1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

The dissertation is an historical ethnography of air. Specifically, it concerns therelationship between airspace, airline travel, and empire. By examining how airlinetravel transformed motion and movement, it argues that empire and imperial encountersbecame three-dimensional in the twentieth century. It analyzes airspace as imperial spaceand suggests that empire, as an idea and a practice, is in the air. Simultaneously, it makesa case for thinking about air as a domain, airspace as a place, and airborne technologiesand habits as textures of the Atlantic world.The dissertation focuses on Imperial Airways. Founded in 1924, the airline wasthe chosen instrument of the British state. The so-called national carrier of the country,the company underwent two major name changes. In 1939, Imperial Airways became theBritish Overseas Airways Corporation. In 1971, the British Overseas AirwaysCorporation became British Airways.xiThe dissertation attempts to integrate national and colonial histories. Itconcentrates on the pivotal role Imperial Airways played in shaping how peopleperceived empire and experienced colonies between the First and Second World Wars. Italso thinks about how colonized people and places shaped Imperial Airways.Chapter One advocates for a history of speed. Questioning how ideas about speedlost their sense of slowness but retained fastness, it explores the transformation of speedinto speed up. In Britain, this transformation was linked to ideas about order and thegeography of empire. Chapter Two is about perception. It examines how the opening-upof the third dimension and the transition from horizontal to vertical travel changedperspective. Consideration of aboveness reveals the first generation of airline passengersexperiencing flights over colonized grounds as remarkable and extraordinary; flights overwater as mundane and ordinary. Chapter Three concerns an air route. It sheds light onthe West Indian origins of the first transatlantic airline route between Britain and theUnited States. Chapter Four shows how those origins made metropolitan officialsquestion the meaning of British prestige. Together, navigations through speed,perception, a route, and prestige make visible profound and prevailing relations betweenairline travel and empire.