Situated (im)mobilities research in the mobile risk society: The dispersed management of the risk of contagion in public transport

This paper investigates the in-situ accomplishment of travelling together during the turbulent times of a global pandemic. It expands the literature on the Mobile Risk Society to enquire into the dispersed, situated management of risk of contagion in public transport. Particularly, it suggests combining the grand theory and epochal account for risk assumed by Beck with a Foucauldian governmentality-perspective that understands risk management as the numerous endeavours to steer and manage the conduct of passengers as well as, importantly, the passengers’ conduct of themselves. Appropriating ethnomethodological categorisation analysis, the paper analyses video footage from inside train carriages running in the north region of Denmark during the pandemic and points out the fine-grained details of passengers’ interactional negotiation and fulfilment of the train company’s risk-management strategy.