Becoming Aeromobile: Two Perspectives on How Our Vision of Future Flight Is Shaped

Infrastructure becomes embedded in our lives, reshaping them. This reshaping starts from the very promise of infrastructure and extends into the future. In the case of airports, moreover, this reshaping implies the possibility of accessing a territory that was only accessible for our mobility a mere 120 years ago and the visions, fuelled by science fiction, of a future relationship with this territory marked by the possibility of everyday travel via small aircraft.

This paper is based on an ethnography and focuses on understanding how air transport infrastructure has reshaped the experiences of the inhabitants of Santiago, Chile, and how these experiences offer a vision of the future of flight that contrasts with the aerospace industry’s efforts and optimistic vision to reshape the industry and aeromobility in general.

To this end, the historical relationship of this reshaping is addressed to demonstrate that this relationship is dynamic over time, both of the infrastructure itself and in the time of those who have and will relate to it.

Firstly, the history of the city’s two international airports is analysed, with a particular focus on the first one, which was located within the city between 1929 and 2006, amidst residential spaces, serving as a kind of experimental laboratory for approaching flight.

Secondly, it analyses how personal history is reshaped around the experience of flight, giving a particular form to the personal relationship with air mobility and its future possibilities. This perspective places particular emphasis on how others are accompanied in forming bonds with this experience, through the inclusion of families travelling with children.