Travelling together in contagious times

Beskrivelse

n public transport, passengers share a limited physical space which leads to increased risk of contagion. This risk has been emphasised during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the passenger watchdog at the Danish Consumer Council (The Passenger Pulse) reports that around 17% of regular users of public transport do not plan to return to public transport after the pandemic, and roughly 20% of these say that they will instead go by car. This paper investigates if and how concerns about contagion thus poses a potential barrier in the transition to more environmentally sustainable mobility (Bardal et al., 2020). Worries about contagion have been investigated in quantitative studies, but we only know very little of this from a qualitative perspective. In an attempt to fill this research gap, the paper reports on a mixed video study (including 360-degree video recordings) of ‘appropriate’ train travelling practices. While existing studies of being with other
passengers (Bissell, 2010) have focused on post hoc material, this paper approaches the conduct of travelling together in collective transport practices as it unfolds in situ. The paper shows how appropriate travelling together is governed through processes in which passengers simultaneously accept and challenge initiatives addressing how they behave properly. In more detail, the paper connects praxeologically oriented ethnomethodology and studies of governmentality in order to unravel the governing of appropriate travelling together understood as the various ways in which proper passenger conduct, particularly in relation to the risk of contagion, is constituted through policies, information material, guidelines and nudging from ‘above’, as well as through passengers’ own travelling practices and legitimation strategies from ‘below’.

Periode	8 jul. 2021 → 9 jul. 2021
Begivenhedstitel	Im/mobile ;ives in turbulent times: Methods and practices of mobilities research
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Newcastle , StorbritannienVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International