PROTEST-AIRT · PROTESTING THE GLOBAL AIR TRANSPORT INDUSTRY: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS FIGHTING FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND THE PLANET

PROTEST-AIRT is a multi-actor and inter-scalar research project aiming at understanding the growing global and European dissent against the air transport industry. Before the pandemic, air transport was expected to growth at a rate of about 4% per year, including both more frequent flyers in developed nations and new markets in the 'developing' world. This future demand was paired with new infrastructural projects, namely new airports and airport expansions. Recently, several social movements have been campaigning in Europe to create awareness about the series of 'side effects' associated to this global industry, from aircraft noise to CO2 and non-CO2 emissions. Airports have become both the site and objects of diverse forms of dissent. As sites of dissent, airports have been the place where activists congregate and exert their democratic rights through claim-making, oftentimes engaging in 'radical' and performative protest acts. As object of dissent, the narratives about airports and airlines as spaces/companies of interconnection and development have been challenged by these dissenting citizens, proposing alternative readings of airports and airlines as spaces of destruction and overconsumption. The PROTEST-AIRT project focuses on selected cases of European activism that target the global air transport industry, including collectives such as SchipholWatch in the Netherlands, Am Boden Bleiben in Germany, Extinction Rebellion in United Kingdom, Zeroport in Spain and the umbrella organization Stay Grounded, which connects action groups from all over the world. PROTEST-AIRT will be based on media texts, in-depth interviews, visual documentation of acts of dissent through participant observation, analysis of social media data (in specific of Twitter as political platform) and secondary literature produced by airports, airlines and social movements alike. The project will study the ongoing debate apropos potential solutions for the aviation industry and their limits.