Feeling safe while being surveilled : The spatial semiotics of affect at international airports

• Departing from Lefebvre’s work on the social production of space, this paper explores the intersection between perceived and lived space from the perspective of spatial discourse analysis. Empirically, the paper studies how the spatiality of international airports performs affective discursive work and establishes prerequisites for air travelers’ feelings of being “in control” and “excited” vs. feelings of being “controlled” and “surveilled”. The concept of binding is applied in order to understand how affect is spatially afforded at Stockholm Arlanda Airport and Vienna International Airport. The analysis reveals that alternations between bound and unbound spaces construe the airports as distinctly ideological sites with different affective potentials. Accordingly, this article adds to the understanding of how airport atmospheres are construed by means of spatial resources such as the height, depth, and shape of walls and ceilings and by the transparency and opaqueness of the built material, as well as by more dynamic elements such as carpets, colors, signage, and retractable belt barriers.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

spatial discourse analysis

binding

affect

perceived space

lived space

airports

Svenska språket

Swedish Language

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)