Being a Chinese Passenger: Practicing Quality and Civilization on the Rail

Abstract

This article examines how everyday practices materialize abstract discourses of social “quality” within the spaces of the Chinese rail system. Rail travel remains a primary mode of transportation in China, competitive on cost and comfort—though not at the same time. This article brings together geographies of skill and mobility to examine how the skilled practice of rail travel produces high and low “quality” bodies and spaces within the rail network. Drawing on Ingold’s “dwelling perspective” to shed light on how movement creates cultural landscape at the national scale, I argue that the growing socio-economic gap within China has led to the emergence of distinct and incompatible traveling practices within the rail ridership. The conflict between a “lacking” ridership relying on mutual tolerance and a “quality” ridership prioritizing self-containment been resolved by the construction of high-speed rail as a separate network, segregating “high” and “low” quality riderships while still serving both.