Running Order: Space, Power and Mobile Subjectivities

Being in-place, being out-of-place or in-between space evokes questions of belonging and citizenship. Recent work by Antonsich (2010) and Staeheli et al (2012) has suggested the dialogical nature of both these concepts – they are not just statuses given or felt but they are constantly contested, reinforced or challenged by others, legal frameworks and normative codes. In this paper, I wish to apply such understandings to the mobile spaces of the street and explore how different mobile subjects are constructed as in-place or otherwise, hinting towards ideas of mobile rights to space and mobile hierarchy. More specifically, I will explore the encounters and relationships between road-runners and pedestrians and how their transient propinquities construct each other as in-place or out-of place. Due to the fleeting nature of such encounters, attention is drawn to the micro-scale movements and actions in such meetings as the dialogue that resists, reinforces or challenges claims to space by different mobile groups. Drawing upon innovative ethnographic methods, I will demonstrate how the ordinary and everyday negotiation of space reveals different power in, rights to and responsibilities in space as well as the guiding frameworks behind such actions. The balance of evidence suggests that pedestrians have a greater or primary claim to space with runners having to concede their mobile subjectivity most often, constructing them as having a secondary claim to space - occasionally in place and occasionally out of space (literally and metaphorically). Yet understanding the subjectivities of different mobilities also hints towards ways in which space can be shared more equally, based upon mutual respect rather than power relations and how living with mobile difference can be improved.