Living in a fly-over world: on moving in a heterogeneous navigational culture

Abstract

This article explores a question of aeromobility and cultural geography by asking what it means to live in a fly-over world. How are we part of practices of aeromobility at times when we are not travelling ourselves? In reflecting on different aspects of global air travel, the article offers a critical understanding of how aeromobility increases the heterogeneity of our navigational culture. A culture not understood as a single global space encompassing us all but rather as networked combinations of travel and non-travel, of horizontal speed and vertical distance, and of complex patterns of diverse modes of movement. Air travel changes the relative distance between geographies. Based on this observation, the article argues that aeromobility affects the feeling of belonging that we develop to the people and places around us – even when we are not able or willing or allowed to travel across the globe.