Paper short abstract:

Ethnographical observations in the urban public transportation trace different practices of the fare payment on the move. The study explicates some variables in order to deconstruct the cashflow process in the post-soviet urban marshrutkas.

Paper long abstract:

There are different practices and technologies of the fare payment process in the post-soviet urban public transportation. This process involves individual and/or communal calculation and passing from a passenger to a driver and back. The practice of a fair payment "on the move" represents a form of delegation to a person or a thing: busman, validator, another passenger or chain of passengers, etc. The presentation is devoted to the study of human and non-human infrastructures of the fare payment process in the post-soviet public transportation. The study focuses on marshrutkas (shared taxi) in regional Russian city - Volgograd. Dense space of marshrutka (neither public nor intimate) creates a high degree of uncertainty, where passengers and a driver should construct social order in a concrete situation «from below». Different human and non-human actors affect passengers' activity during the fare payment process. One person can use different ways of fare payment during his or her transit. Why do passengers prefer a certain practice in concrete situations? To answer this question, I attempt to explicate some variables in order to deconstruct the cashflow process in the post-soviet urban marshrutkas. The study is based on the observations in marshrutkas and interviews with drivers and passengers.