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Contribution short abstract

Based on ethnographic work, this paper examines Kutaisi International Airport as a peripheral infrastructure shaping migrant aeromobility in post-Soviet Georgia. It analyzes how everyday travel practices, labor migration, and European border regimes produce unequal, embodied experiences of mobility.

Contribution long abstract

Kutaisi International Airport in western Georgia has emerged as a key mobility hub linking Georgia to Europe. Located on the periphery of the historic city of Kutaisi and approximately 250 kilometers from the capital, Tbilisi, the airport serves as a hub for low-cost air travel, particularly for Georgian migrants engaged in precarious and circular labor across Europe. Budget connections to countries such as Poland, Italy, Greece, and Germany facilitate transnational mobility for less privileged Georgians, for whom air travel has become both accessible and necessary.

This paper examines the everyday mobility practices through which travelers reach Kutaisi Airport from different parts of Georgia and continue onward their labor migration to European cities. Drawing on ethnographic research between 2021 and 2025, I trace the assemblages of infrastructures, routes, and actors that enable this form of aeromobility, including long-distance buses, trains, private travel companies, and European law enforcement agencies. I focus on specific transport services connecting Tbilisi and Batumi to Kutaisi, as well as on informal networks involving family members and regional ties that mobile Georgians use for their mobility.

The paper asks how modern aeromobility is produced, mediated, and experienced in contemporary Georgia. It analyzes how distance from infrastructure, time constraints, visa regimes, and European border control practices shape unequal travel experiences, particularly at the border with the privileged Schengen area. By foregrounding Kutaisi Airport as a peripheral site, the paper raises broader debates of embodied mobility and infrastructure in post-Soviet Georgia.