Defamiliarizing the Mundane Roadscape

Abstract

It is a popular and academic notion that routine driving along motorways signifies contemporary alienation through a kind of serial "non-space."The author counters these dystopian assumptions about the character of this everyday pursuit by exploring his own experience of driving along England's M6 motorway, showing how roads are enmeshed within unpredictable, multiple flows of ideas, sensations, other spaces and times, narratives, and socialities. By critiquing notions that autospace is inherently linear and featureless, that driving is asocial and desensitizing, and that the quotidian is a realm of unthinking and automatic behavior, he shows how it is precisely in the realm of mundane space-time that both homely familiarities and imaginative connections can be fostered.Because the British rail system has been in considerable disarray from some time, more often than not, I drive the 45 miles from my Manchester home to my workplace in Stoke-on-Trent. It is more reliable because the train timetable is somewhat fictional. Surprisingly, the journey takes only about 50 minutes because the majority of the distance includes motorway travel, namely, the M56 and the M6. People often express surprise, even indignation, that I prefer to travel by car, but I have come to realize that I enjoy the journey. I look forward to these 50 minutes, and despite popular discourses about the unpleasantness of contemporary car travel and the supposedly asocial practice of solitary commuting by car, the route is usually free of congestion and I do not feel particularly alienated from the world. More to the point, rather than the soulless experience often conjured up, I find my daily journey rich in mundane comfort and sensation, replete with small pleasures and diverting incidents and thoughts. To capspace & culture vol. 6 no.

Connecting Dispersed Communities on the Move

“…There is a huge gulf between the autobiographical approaches presented by Pearce (2000) and Edensor (2003), and the value of time evaluation by Mackie et al (2003). However, there is much to be learned from individual narratives in deconstructing meanings, assumptions and contradictions surrounding travel time use.…”

“…Pearce (2000) and Edensor (2003) expand this discussion of music and travel through autobiographical analysis of driving. For Edensor (2003) choosing "drive-time" music to accompany the drive along the M6 (a motorway in Britain) is contextualised by the tempo of driving (speed, congestion, etc.)…”

“…The positive utility of travel time is identified in a number of mobile practices such as reading documents, making phone calls, planning the day ahead, listening to music and daydreaming and, the creation of individual identity (see Bull, 2000;Davies, 2001;Edensor, 2003;Haddon et al, 2002;Laurier & Philo, 2001;Pearce, 2000;Perry et al, 2001). These debates extend the concept of travel time use to viewing the mobile individual as a node connected to heterogeneous networks of regional flows, and the movement of the consciousness (imagination, memory, everyday thoughts) between temporal regions of past, present, and future.…”

Performing Elusive Mobilities: Ritualization, Play, and the Drama of Scheduled Departures

“…In spite of this mundane nature, everyday mobile rituals are creative practices demanding focus and skill . Even though they are permeated by relatively un-reflexive habits, as Edensor (2003) suggests, everyday mobility rituals allow for possibilities to transcend the banal, escape uniformity, and to engage in complex interactions that generate the distribution of affect, the building of shared habits, and the solution of common problems. The ritualization of mundane spatial mobilities therefore does not emerge from its expressive symbolic value, but rather its affective consequentiality.…”

“…Lately, research on mundane spatial mobilities has begun to shed light on the taskscapes of transportation-mediated movement and the skills passengers practice in negotiating these environments (e.g. Bissell, 2009;Edensor, 2003;Holley, Jain, and Lyons, 2008;Jones, 2005;Laurier, 2004;Lofgren, 2008;. These studies have clearly shown how mobilities are hard-wrought intersubjective accomplishments, but much less attention has been dedicated to how spatial mobility acts fail to achieve their aims and how social actors need to adjust or abort plans,…”