Airports and air-mindedness: Spacing, timing and using the Liverpool Airport, 1929-1939

Some popular texts have associated airports with a lack of identity. It is supposed that people are alienated from these ahistorical and interstitial spaces (Auge. 1995; Castells 1996). Other approaches have tended to ignore their sociality, exploring their role within transport networks rather than what goes on within. Through a discussion of the early beginnings of British airport development and the construction of Liverpool Airport at Speke, I attempt to show how there are other contextual geographies to airports. By using the concept of air-mindedness-a moral geographical concept that promoted the belief in the possibilities of aircraft mobility, this paper discusses how social identities became bound to flight, forming the context to the development of the airport and both local and national belonging. This examination will reveal the embeddedness of airports within the times, spaces and uses from which they are produced and consumed. Archival research provides the material for this discussion.