{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","uuid":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","normalized_title":"timeconsumptionandeverydaylifepracticematerialityandculture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%2C%20Consumption%20and%20Everyday%20Life%20Practice%2C%20Materiality%20and%20Culture","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/search"},"page":{"printed_page":90,"pdf_page":93,"physical_index":93,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"57143f9bc8c0fb2ed47e9c6d8daff8cdcd184f18d398296eab3cb92b4f00bc1f"},"chapter":"List of Tables and Figures","content":"Listening to complaints coming from passengers on the Lund–Helsingborg line (as well as those coming from the buses in Åtvidaberg), it is interesting to note that most of the grievances that are voiced focus upon the moments in which the flow of daily routines break down and cease to comply with any laws of predictability. Day after day, people like me leave their homes at approximately the same time,<sup>8</sup> have a more or less predetermined tempo with which they proceed to the station, and even specific places on the platform at which they stand and wait for the train. But the rhythm of the commute is broken here, and a moment of unpredictability is injected into the routine as commuters stand anticipating the train. As the train approaches, the cultural energy on the platform thickens. Newspapers are folded, bags are picked up and idle daydreams dissipate.\n\nBen Highmore has described the daily commute as a phenomenon which people engage in ‘as if on autopilot’ (2004: 310), but as the train approaches, commuters in Lund seem collectively to shut off their autopilots. While each person’s commute may be an individual project, this is the point at which it becomes tangibly entangled in a larger collective movement. People draw together and collect in front of the train’s closed doors waiting for them to open – rubbing, touching and pushing one another. The normal boundaries of what Edward T. Hall described as ‘personal distance … [the] small protective sphere or bubble that an organism maintains between itself and others’ (1990 [1969]: 119) collapse into ‘intimate distance’ (the distance at which the presence of another person is ‘overwhelming’ (1990 [1969]: 116). With the sanctity of one’s personal space disrupted, the atmosphere on the platform shifts from the lull of waiting, to a more competitive and aggressive mode. But even here, in the chaotic moments before the doors open, ritualized rules of engagement still apply. Backpacks, bags and elbows are all employed strategically to ensure an optimal position, but only within clear limits (physically brushing someone aside is allowed, inflicting pain is not). The eyes of commuters remain either fixed on the doors, refusing to acknowledge the presence of the bodies that at this range must be included in peripheral fields of vision, or peer directly into the necks and backs of heads of those directly in front of them who have successfully jostled their way into the best positions in front of the train’s doors.<sup>9</sup>\n\nIt is the presence of the train which catalyses the sudden burst of activity on the platform, but in order fully to understand the cultural mechanisms behind this tightening emotional atmosphere, an appreciation of the materiality of the train is necessary. For as it turns out, the trains along the Lund–Helsingborg line feature padded and upholstered seats with retractable trays; they lack hand straps, or poles to hold onto for those who might have to remain on their feet. While commuters in many parts of the world generally expect to stand (and just hope to be able to get on the train), the success of the commute in southern Sweden is entirely dependent upon one’s ability to quickly find a seat, claim it and thereby reconstitute the boundaries of one’s personal space. Indeed, when one of the local newspapers ran a critical series of articles on the state of the commuter services in the region, it was immediately bombarded by readers’ complaints – and their number one complaint was the lack of seating that forced many people to stand on their way to and from work. The commuter rail authorities responded by lengthening the trains, providing much more seating.\n\n90\n\nTom O’Dell","previous_page":89,"next_page":91}