Using a lively mixture of videos, interactive exercises and readings, the course explores how the social world of the airport is made and maintained. In particular, it investigates how the processes that constitute this world - queuing, check in, security clearance, moving around and so on - depend on relations between people and material objects.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• Understand the historical and sociological context of how passports became commonplace
• Identify ways in which passport regimes are used to sort, categorise, order and classify populations
• Consider ways that the passport can produce racialised subjects
• Understand how the passport has become a staple of security in the modern airport
• Understand the role of matter and the material in making social worlds by using the airport as a case study.