To crash on the bus (or sit on needles and pins)? – buses and subways in teenage everyday geographies

Abstract

When young people travel, they are often very dependent on public transport or parents. This study uses interviews with 16–19 years old teenagers in Stockholm to investigate their everyday experiences of public transit. The paper explores the experiences of buses and subways, here conceptualized as mobile places, to understand how they shape teenagers’ daily life. Understanding teenagers’ experiences of public transportation is part of understanding their everyday life, struggles, and possibilities to be mobile and participate in society. It is also a step towards ensuring that they find public transportation inclusive, safe, and worth traveling with today and in the future. Conceptually, the analysis focuses on how these mobile places are experienced as providing weights or reliefs to the everyday and if, how and when they may be places of interaction or retreat, addressing two needs in teenagers’ personal being and development. The study shows how various experiences of traveling with buses and subways shape how the teenagers feel, and how they make strategic choices in relation to this. A quite manifold, varying, and complex picture of public transportation arises, with stories of wellbeing, comfort, discomfort, and exclusion, and with sharp differences between girls and boys, and between buses and subways. These nuances are essential in planning and evaluation of transport systems in regard to how, when, where, or for whom public transport can be a part of social sustainability, as public policies often assume.

Embodied Othering Encounters with Muslim(‐Looking) Passengers: Riding across Amsterdam, Tallinn, Leipzig, and Turku1

“…Mobility scholars have examined how various dimensions of difference and identity such as class (Ohnmacht et al 2009), gender and sexuality (Gardner et al 2017;Law 1999;Lubitow et al 2020), race and ethnicity (Fleetwood 2004;Purifoye 2015;Raudenbush 2012;Rink 2016), and age (Honkatukia and Svynarenko 2019;Lagerqvist 2019) are negotiated within urban spaces of public transport. Some studies have also focused on perceptions, affects, and emotions.…”

“…2017; Law 1999; Lubitow et al. 2020), race and ethnicity (Fleetwood 2004; Purifoye 2015; Raudenbush 2012; Rink 2016), and age (Honkatukia and Svynarenko 2019; Lagerqvist 2019) are negotiated within urban spaces of public transport. Some studies have also focused on perceptions, affects, and emotions.…”

Encountering the Other

“…Several other female interviewees also described the heightening anxiety that emerges tied to alcohol. As explained in chapter three, for them, alcohol is related to the drunk men who might cause sexual and/or racist harassments (Valentine, 1989;Lagerqvist, 2019). Even in the absence of any hatred or hostility from their fellow passengers, some participants argued that their racial, ethnic, or religious markers might make them conspicuous thus better to avoid potentially uncomfortable social contacts (Ocejo & Tonnelat, 2014;Benediktsson et al, 2020).…”

“…Transport and mobility justice are not only important to peoples' right to mobility but also are central to enabling the right to the city that touches upon how equity and inclusion are assembled through (im)mobilities, combining distributive and procedural notions of justice (Sheller, 2018;Scott, 2020). Public transport provides people with access to urban space to live and work, to participate in the political life of the city Bissell, 2016;Gardner et al, 2017;Lagerqvist, 2019).…”

“…Mobilities studies have paid attention to different aspects of a passenger's journey such as perceptions, experiences, affects, and emotions (Jensen, 2012;Bissell, 2008;Lagerqvist, 2019;Merriman, 2016;Budd, 2011;Ocejo & Tonnelat, 2014). There are studies on racialisation (Raudenbush, 2012;Purifoye, 2015), gendered identities and sexual harassment (Law, 1999;Gardner et al, 2017;Lubitow et al, 2020), bullying (deLara, 2008;Goodboy et al, 2016), and age (Honkatukia & Svynarenko, 2019;Lagerqvist, 2019;Westman et al, 2013;Van Hoven & Meijering, 2019) which connect concepts of difference, exclusion, access, and justice with public transport. Although mobilities scholars have examined how different axes of social inequality such as gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, or economic class create potentials for incivility, there is a lack of research in understanding the interface between religion and public transport.…”