I don’t dare go on the bus again in Åtvidaberg since I was yelled at by elderly passengers the one time when I happened to take my sick child and baby carriage on the bus to the hospital . . .
Mother in Åtvidaberg<sup>4</sup>
The field of mobility has become a vital arena of research activity in the humanities and social sciences over the course of the past decade. This is a subject of study in which vast amounts of work have already been conducted on subjects ranging from international migration and the life circumstances of migrant laborers to tourism and transnational travel. However, in light of how much time most people spend commuting, a review of the literature reveals that this is an activity (and form of mobility) which has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention.<sup>5</sup> At least part of the reason for this can be found in a comment made by an anthropological colleague when the subject was broached recently. As he said, ‘The problem with studying commuting is that it is just so damn boring.’ The problem here, however, is not an issue of boredom. It is an issue of moving into, and challenging, the realm of the taken for granted.
As Elizabeth Shove has argued (2003: 1), social scientists have been highly preoccupied with studying that which is explicit and dramatic, but less interested in the inconspicuous routines and praxes that saturate daily life. Turning our attention to the routines and rhythms of daily life implies a shift in focus that takes us into the world of what Joe Moran (drawing upon Georges Perec) has called the ‘infraordinary: that part of our lives that is so routine as to become almost invisible, like infrared light’ (2007: 3). And as Edward T. Hall has demonstrated (1990), it is a world that has been ritually organized to the degree that, if it seems to be invisible, it is because the rituals we engage in have nearly become embedded in our biological being and sense of self. But make no mistake about it. The rituals and rhythms of activities we are dealing with here are not genetically inherited or passed down. To the contrary, while they may produce actions that seem nearly instinctive, they are thoroughly cultural. And if commuting seems like a dreadfully boring subject for the anthropologist to approach, it is because the organization of these rituals is so thoroughly complete that it usually works to disguise the dramas and tensions ever implicit in the commute – dramas which can become vividly apparent when one least expects it.
Take, for example, the local commuter buses in Åtvidaberg, a small, economically hard-pressed, rural mining town in Sweden. Over a period of nearly four years, the municipal authorities had provided the local population with free bus services. These services proved to be highly popular, particularly (but not exclusively) amongst the elderly, who otherwise found it difficult to travel into the centre of town to purchase food and conduct their errands. But by October 2006 the situation on the buses had gotten out of control as people began fighting over the seats and standing space within the buses. As the local paper reported on the tensions surrounding the buses, the cultural dynamics of the commute quickly came into view. Among other things, arguments erupted as to who was the most ‘handicapped’ and thereby had the rights to the special seats designated for the physically impaired. Mothers with small children complained about the verbal abuse they encountered as they brought their children and baby carriages onto the bus – taking valuable space which could otherwise have been used by people with walkers and impeding the ability of everyone to enter and exit the bus. Others were accused of joyriding and just using the buses as a means of killing time. And finally there were those passengers who wondered if it was really fair that youths used the buses, taking seats, and thereby forcing some elderly to stand with their walkers. At issue here were questions concerning such things as rights of access to transportation, personal identity in relation to specific places and spaces, and presumptions about particular rhythms of the commute (such as those related to the processes of entering and exiting the bus, finding or giving up a seat, or for determining the ‘appropriate’ duration of time for which one could ‘fairly’ claim a space on the bus).
My Soul for a Seat
87