Towards a Psychogeography of the Long-Haul Flight IV

It is only after parking his car, checking in his luggage, clearing his identity check and buying the necessary duty free gifts that Marc Auge's generic traveller, Pierre Dupoint, feels at ease. And it is only once the fasten seatbelt light has been switched and the plane is at cruising altitude, does Dupont feel relaxed enough to feel "alone at last". (Non-Places, 1992, p. 6). Pierre Dupont is not only important because he presents a passage through the little stresses, time demands and ??? but also because his passage through the airport becomes an exchange where anonymity is granted for time spent in a generic and bland space - a non-place. Auge's thesis opens into an account of the non-place and in Auge's words, "If a place can be defined as relational, historical, and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with idetity will be considered a non-place" (77 -78). The airport, for Auge, typifies non-place. Non-places pass avoid the very spaces that they exist alongside, or pass through. A traveller can buy wooden tulips in Schipfol airport without needing to visit Amsterdam or even legally enter the Netherlands. As Auge writes, "the traveller is absolved of the need to stop or even look" (97). Airports present physical and permanent structures with little or no direct contact with the surrounding area. The air-traveller, especially those using an airport for connecting flights, needs to historic relation to the place it is in and the airport offers no historic relation in return. However, for Auge an exchange does take place - the air-traveller, devoid of spaces with historic and identity relations, is offered anonymity in return. In airports almost all are travellers and simply transient visitors off to elsewhere. Relations to sites and spaces do not need to be formed, nor do relations between individuals.

Auge's thesis offers an interesting starting point to uncovering a psychogeography of the long-haul flight. Benjamin's boredom and waiting becomes an offer of anonymity in exchange for passage through a non-place. However, Auge's thesis is only a beginning, and certainly limited. Relations do take place in airports. Now, more than ever, identity is essential to air-travel. And in an airport relations and identity are determined by the convergence of commerce and security. It is capital and security that govern relations in an airport, to an extent no seen in any other transport hub. A psychogeography of the long-haul flight will uncover and examine this relationship.