Ever since the term “aeromobility” was first used in the early 2000s as a parallel to automobility, it has developed into a multilayered concept and even an individual field of research. Yet, the meanings ascribed to the terms “aeromobility,” “aeromobilities,” or “aeromobile” vary significantly depending on the scale, context, and approach of particular studies and their authors. Using elements of discourse analysis, the article explores these meanings across a wide range of academic publications and identifies four main discourses of aeromobility in mobility studies. These are the mobility-system, the norm, the embodied practice, and the lifestyle discourse. While synthesizing the different discourses, their contributions, biases and possible future routings, the article intends to inspire more abstract thinking about aeromobility and offers several suggestions to open it up as a concept with socio-cultural implications.
Veronika Zuskáčová is a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, Masaryk University in Brno in the Czech Republic. Her primary research interests involve aeromobilities and geographies of air transportation with special focus on frequent flying and qualitative methodology. She also paricipates on a research project examining the everyday mobilities of car users. E-mail: veronika.zuskacova@mail.muni.cz