Public spaces of transport as mobile public spheres and atmospheric publics

Abstract

Public transport is a contested political terrain and an arena of micro-political struggle: it is always kinopolitical. This reflection on the articles gathered in the special issue on Public Transport as Public Space discusses their connections to prior work in the field and what we can learn from these new studies of public transport as a public space, as a public sphere and as an atmospheric public constellation. It shows how the concept of mobile publics opened up new avenues for exploring the relation between public space and public spheres within the moving spaces of encounter of public transportation systems and their diverse passengers. Qualitative methodologies for the study of the flexible and contingent socialities of the mobile public realm have become especially relevant for the study of public transportation as a public space in which cosmopolitan or collective identities are in tension with alienation and atomisation.