PhD Candidate Kayra Guven named as Finalist for 2026-2027 California Map Society & David Rumsey Map Center Student Exhibition Competition

Kayra Guven, a Stanford University PhD student in History, developed Empires in Plane Sight: Airline Routes & Worldmaking, a proposal that examines maps of the global network of commercial airline routes that took shape in the twentieth century. Routes of individual airlines speak to themes of colonialism and informal imperialism, and “complicate how we think of the continued influence of imperial networks.”
 

Kayra included Air France. Sur Les Ailes D'Air France Decouvrez Le Monde A Votre Tour. by Lucien Boucher (1952) as one of three maps showing airline routes that speak to the themes she proposes exploring.