Air Travel: On the Embodied Accomplishment of Technically Augmented Mobility

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Larissa Schindler
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 271437442

Travelling is one of the central practices of the globalized society. Yet it is predominantly studied outside sociology as a phenomenon of mere transport without paying much attention to its embodiment and performance. In sociology, on the contrary, embodied sociality has been well researched, yet without considering technologically augmented bodies. The submitted research project aims to fill this research gap by conducting an empirical study on air travel. Movement as a technique of the body and technically augmented movement will be researched in one perspective. The aim of this project is therefore to widen mobility research in respect to embodiment and performance and at the same time to open up a new field in the sociology of the body: the embodiment of technically augmented mobility. Furthermore, different to former studies not only one form of mobility is focused, as e.g. flying, but the very practice of air travel, that is a combination of means of transportation and longer chains of actions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants