The aviation industry has faced challenges in labour, infrastructure and technology even before the COVID-19 pandemic set in. As a mobilities geographer, Associate Professor Lin Weiqiang from NUS Geography is motivated by the rapid acceleration of aeromobilities in Asia, and wants to better understand the inner workings of the aviation industry, and simultaneously, better inform policies surrounding labour and technology.
Funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research (SSHR) Fellowship, his research project focuses on airport functions — passenger formalities in checkin and gate boarding, as well as airside services relating to baggage handling and ramp operations. He studies the daily routines of workers and how they navigate within the broader aviation ecosystem. In particular, he is interested in the welfare of airport workers, including the racial and gendered aspects of airport work, as well as how migrant and aged workers cope with new technological changes.
In a nutshell, airport operations are increasingly being automated. This could ensure efficiency and minimise disruptions, but in some cases alter and affect human labour. Assoc Prof Lin’s research aims to understand how automation changes airport operations in Asia, and what this means for airport employees, their working conditions, and the services they provide. He believes it is important to examine industrial changes from a social science perspective, to ensure that any future automation will be sustainable and beneficial to both workers and passengers.
In addition to his research on labour and automation, Assoc Prof Lin has expertise in the production of airspaces in Southeast Asia, and the discursive and technological framings of air logistics in Singapore and China.
Find out more about the researcher who is a rising star in cultural politics of air transport
Explore how grand visions in international connectivity collide with local realities in infrastructure projects, revealing a nuanced narrative of development.
Commentary to address the challenges of studying the ‘technical’ in relation to the futures of geographical thought and praxis by proposing three strategies that might be developed in geographical research
Lin, W. (2022). Automated infrastructure: COVID-19 and the shifting geographies of supply chain capitalism. Progress in human geography, 46 (2), 463-483.
Lin, W. (2022). Atmospheric conditioning: Airport automation, labour and the COVID-19 pandemic. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 47 (1), 214-228.
Lin, W. (2020). Evental infrastructure: momentous geographies of technoscience production. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110 (6), 1770-1786.
Lin, W., & Ai, Q. (2020). ‘Aerial Silk Roads’: Airport Infrastructures in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Development and Change, 51 (4), 1123-1145.
Lin, W. (2019). Infrastructure’s expenditures: Changi airport, food cargo and capital’s technosphere. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43 (1), 76-93.
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