A bus as a compressed public space: Everyday multiculturalism in Milan

Abstract

The article contributes to understanding public transport as a public space by exploring diversity and the city through mobility. It investigates the compressed and mobile space of the 90/91 trolleybus in Milan. Due to its itinerary and extended schedule, this bus is intensively used by citizens with different ethnic, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. Literature on planning and transport has recently started exploring qualitative issues through individual ethnographic research on transport means. Research on everyday multiculturalism, despite recognising the role of public transport as a promising space to study the negotiation of difference, rarely adopts this specific focus and does it mainly from a socio-anthropological point of view. Against this background, the work investigates the compressed space of a bus through an ethnographic exploration of people, spaces and practices onboard. Notably, the article is is grounded on direct observation carried out by three classes of students in the Urban Ethnography course offered in the MSc in Urban Planning and Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, and presents a post-hoc reflection on the outcomes of the teaching project. Grounding on this experience, the article argues that the compressed and mobile space of public transport is an excellent observation point to investigate everyday negotiation of difference and a privileged observatory of broader city dynamics. Additionally, the multiplication of points of view embedded in the observations and experiences of students has proved how, in the face of increasingly diverse cities, pluralisation may be a key methodological approach.

Public transport as public space: Introduction

“…All of the papers in this special issue deal in one way or another with the topics of encounters and passengering. Perhaps most clearly on this topic, Bovo et al (2023) show a particular trolley-bus line in Milan as a space for encountering as the line goes through different neighbourhoods of the city. Vehicles become concentrated areas for negotiating difference, bringing together citizens from different ethnic, economic, social and cultural backgrounds.…”

“…As noted, public transport is a mobile public space in contrast to a fixed one, and that makes it traverse different neighbourhoods and spaces thus potentially serving different social groups who encounter one another in bus, tram or metro rides (see, e.g. Bovo et al, 2023). Thus, in comparison to squares or parks, people do not only come to public space but public space comes to them as they engage in rides through the city.…”

Public spaces of transport as mobile public spheres and atmospheric publics

“…The bodies, histories and meanings that we carry with us influence not only our access to public space, but also how we interpret and tell the stories of those experiences, which in turn shapes cities and citizenship (Rink, 2023). Bovo et al (2023) argue that public transport can serve as 'insightful places to observe and understand the transformation of space and society'; it is 'an excellent lens of observation to understand how everyday negotiation of difference occurs, precisely because the space is limited and ''on the move'''. The mobile space of public transport can be a compressed public space in which heterogeneous observers experience different meanings and configurations.…”

“…The mobile space of public transport can be a compressed public space in which heterogeneous observers experience different meanings and configurations. ‘Explorations in the fine grain of socio-spatial relationships’, they suggest, ‘have been helpful to understand micro-publics of encounter, negotiations of difference, ephemeral solidarities and everyday forms of racism’ (Bovo et al, 2023). The study of such diverse micro-publics of encounter and negotiation in motion are suggestive of Jensen’s (2006)’s approach to ‘facework’ and ‘flows of meaning’ in urban spaces understood through Erving Goffman’s sociology of urban interaction.…”

“…This has important implications for mobile methodologies. In one case of data collection, ‘pluralisation may be a key methodological approach’ since having multiple observers helps bring into view ‘a multiplication of viewpoints and corporeal experiences that was made possible by the heterogeneity of biographies, educational paths and ethnocultural backgrounds of the students’ (Bovo et al, 2023). In another example, Franco (2023) argues for the use of photojournalism to make visible the distinctive experience of women when using Mexico City’s public transport.…”