Fractured Skies: Civil Aviation and the Global South, 28 and 29 June 2022

Description

Airplanes and civil aviation have played a central role in the economics, politics, and cultures of the twentieth century. They have been crucial in both twentieth century nationalism and internationalism, and in the politics of independent nation-state building and the construction of colonial empires. Aeromobility and airmindedness have been essential for shaping a vivid, material imagination of a globally connected world, and the development of civil aviation has emerged as a key goal of states, rich and poor. 

Histories of civil aviation have traditionally focused on airline development or linear approaches to technical innovations and progress. In recent years however new historiographical and methodological approaches have opened up new vistas by bringing in broader geographical, cultural, political, economic, and social currents. 

This workshop seeks to bring together these new perspectives to explore aviation in relation to the Global South. It looks to bring these new historiographical and methodological currents in the history of aviation into conversation with developments in other fields of history and further afield in the social sciences and humanities. We invite historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, geographers, and scholars from other interested disciplines to reflect on all aspects of civil aviation, aerial mobility, and aerial infrastructure in the Global South. We invite scholars who can explore the intersections of civil aviation with military aviation and other aspects of state action and governance at regional, national, and international levels through micro and macro case-studies and other interventions. 

Organisation and venue

The workshop will take place digitally on 28 and 29 June. It is organised by  SPP-scholar Marie Huber and by Waqar H. Zaidi.

Check out the workshops' official website for more information and the programme.