Paper short abstract:

This paper asks how the pandemic altered railway passenger experiences and practices in Tokyo, inquiring into processes of (de)sensitization to viral risk and the formation of a “new normal” of urban mobility practices. It draws on interviews with commuters and fieldwork aboard public transport.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic not just prompted the widespread deceleration and halting of human movement, but also reconfigured enduring mobilities. One example of this is many Tokyo residents’ continued use of the city’s urban railway network throughout the pandemic. Even as case numbers rose and multiple ‘states of emergency’ were declared, Japanese government authorities avoided placing official restrictions on ‘non-essential’ urban mobility flows in Tokyo. As a consequence, passenger numbers did not drop as dramatically as they did in other world cities such as London or New York. Zooming in on the viral transformation of passenger practices and experiences during Tokyo’s initial "states of emergency", the presentation asks how passengers on one of the world’s busiest urban railway systems learned to move with viral risk. It then explores how the pandemic disruption posed by this new sense of unease accompanying public transport usage was “woven back” into the mundane reality of everyday mobility practices (Binnie et al. 2007) and became part of a “new normal” as the COVID-19 crisis progressed. Through this, the presentation calls attention to undulating processes of (de)sensitization to risk that urban dwellers may undergo when city life becomes associated with viral danger. It draws on interviews with commuters in the Greater Tokyo area as well as autoethnographic fieldwork on Tokyo’s urban railway network during two key moments in the COVID-19 crisis: the beginning of the pandemic in spring and summer 2020 and the ambivalent “post corona” period of autumn and winter 2022/2023. The presentation features manga-style drawings, which are the product of an extensive "ethno/graphic" collaboration with a research participant, and which facilitated the capture of ephemeral moments of fieldwork as well as the visual reconstruction of interviewee experiences.