Placing the Nation: The Politics of Spatial Production at Auckland Airport and Wellington Airport

<p>The airport is a site that blurs spatial boundaries. While primarily functioning to move aircraft and passengers between land and air, the airport is simultaneously a complex social institution that mediates the relationship between the local and global, the public and private, and national and international space. This thesis discusses the changing nature of Auckland International Airport and Wellington International Airport as spaces that are produced through a number of historical, economic and political contexts. Using spatial, cultural and critical theory along with concepts from human geography and mobilities research, this study examines each airport as a dynamic, ongoing process of spatial relations. Central to this analysis is the understanding that space, subjectivity and technologies of power produce and reproduce each other on different scales. Drawing upon news stories, promotional material, institutional representations and popular representations of Auckland and Wellington airports, the following thesis will explore the ways in which their spaces have been imagined, produced and used over time.</p>