David Birkin

Grounded

I am proposing to research what I call a neo-imperial aerial imaginary and the role it has played in the construction of post-imperial British national identity and subjectivity. From airline slogans and air force propaganda to drone surveillance and deportation flights, the aircraft and the aerial has become an emblem of imperialist ideology.

In using the aerial as a lens through which to study how the mythologies and iconographies of Britain’s legitimising discourses have projected an image of neocolonial power that re-inscribes concepts of nationalism, paternalism, consumerism, and class, I also investigate the view from below alongside various acts of resistance that have ‘grounded’ fighter jets and halted deportation flights.