Aerial Life

Peter Adey is Lecturer in Cultural Geography at Keele University, Staffordshire, England. His research interests include the study of mobility and cultures of aviation and security. Adey is the author of Mobility (2009).

“These books could serve as a starting point from which to further develop this concept of aerial space and how it fits with or challenges other theories of space that are emerging in geography and the social sciences more broadly, such as those drawing on network and complexity theory.”  (The AAG Review of Books, 1 March 2014)''Peter Adey is a clear, strong, inventive, unique voice in human geography. In Aerial Life, he brings together a fascinating set of theoretical concerns and empirical cases in his inimitable style, with a gravity of purpose and a lightness of touch that makes for an incredibly rich book.'—Mark B. Salter, University of Ottawa ‘By extending critical human geography to the complex verticalities of airspace, Peter Adey offers a vitally important riposte to the long neglect of aerial cultural politics in the social sciences. Aerial Life is a brilliant tour de force. Incisive, comprehensive, fresh and, above all, topical - this is the book which can guide us as we address the geographies of the aerial.’—Stephen Graham, Newcastle University"He presents a compelling study of the processes involved in the social and psychological shaping of what he calls "the aerial subject." (Times Literary Supplement, 15 October 2010)

• Figures and Tables ixSeries Editors’ Preface xAcknowledgements xi1 Introduction 1Prologue 1Overview 6Aerial Life 8Powering Up Aerial Geographies 13The Organization of the Book 21Part One Becoming Aerial 232 Birth of the Aerial Body 25Introduction 25Beginnings 28‘Handsome Is as Handsome Does’: Disassembling the Aerial Body 30The Flesh of the Aerial Youth 41Simulation 45Conclusion 523 The Projection and Performance of Airspace 54Introduction 54Building a Political Space: Identity, Boundedness and the Sanctity of Territory 57Undoing Aerial Space: Post-nationalism and Projective Power 70Conclusion 80Part Two Governing Aerial Life 834 Aerial Views: Bodies, Borders and Biopolitics 85Introduction 85Seeing the Wood for the Trees: Targeting, Administering and Managing Populations 86Techniques of the Observer/Observed 103Three-Dimensional Vision 109Conclusion 1135 Profiling Machines 114Introduction 114Imagining the Pilot/Passenger 117Sorting 124Modifying 132Conclusion 144Part Three Aerial Aggression 1456 Aerial Environments 147Introduction 147The Emergence of a Target 149Systems, Circulations and Ecological Warfare 161Air Conditioning 170Conclusion 1777 Subjects under Siege 179Warning 179Introduction 181The Anatomy of Panic 185Imaginations and Urgencies 189Vigilance and the Social as Circuit 191Entrainment 198Conclusion 2058 Conclusion 206Environments 207Futures 208Aerial Turns 209Notes 211Bibliography 228Index 255