Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart forgot to take her passport in her first solo flight over the Atlantic in 1932. She had to obtain one during her stop in Paris. In it, she listed her profession as flyer. Earhart’s leather-bound passport embodied her identity and aspirations. But it also proclaimed the ideas of jurisdiction and nationality and the prerogative of nations to approve or deny the access of individuals to their territories. Passports are the result of a highly regulated world and have always reached maximum importance in times of conflict: in the early 20th century, Europeans could travel throughout the old continent without the need of a passport. Passports and identity cards were re-established in the Western world only after World War II, when the world developed hermetic and unfriendly national boundaries. Today, in our fear-ridden world, with countries crushing immigrants at the borders, passports have become e-passports, and incorporate a 64 Kb chip loaded with individual information about the bearer. And, yet, despite this new addition, passports have kept their essence as objects intact: same format, same size and configuration, similar appearance from country to country, other than variations in color and in the stamped national identity in the front. It is said that the first passport was a letter that a Persian king issued for one of his officials circa 5th century BC. Today, not much has changed and passports are still instruments of control in our increasingly segregated world.
