На факультете социологии СПбГУ продолжает работу открытый междисциплинарный семинар для молодых ученых «Научная среда». Семинар проходит при поддержке двух партнеров: Совета молодых ученых факультета социологии СПбГУ и Центра изучения Германии и Европы (СПбГУ – Университет Билефельда). Весеннюю сессию завершит семинар «Движение и ожидание: трансформация практик повседневной мобильности в европейских городах» Встреча пройдет 28 мая, в среду, в 19.00 на факультете социологии СПбГУ по адресу: ул. Смольного 1/3, 9 подъезд, ауд. 229.

Sabrina Kopf, University of Vienna
‘The Streets Belong to Everyone’ – The Meaning of Space and Spatial Strategies in Belgrade’s Bike Activism

Currently, we witness the emergence of new forms of urban activism that increasingly question established political and economic power structures by claiming the citizens’ ‘right to the city’. Taking place in cities around the world, this development can also be found in Serbia’s capital Belgrade where a significant number of urban activist groups have been created during the last five years.

Based on an ethnographic research on the forms of collective action in Belgrade the paper explores how urban space is appropriated, used and contested by activists in order to make their claims for a more livable city. By taking the case-study of activist groups and individuals who direct their engagement towards the promotion of cycling in the capital, the paper sheds light on the significance of space in Belgrade’s bike movement. It investigates the multiple dimensions of space as a ground of interpretation and experience as well as the terrain where the activists’ activities are located. Furthermore, it argues that in Belgrade’s bike activism space becomes a field of empowerment enabling activists to regain agency and resist the pressure of political relations that are embedded spatially.

Andrey Vozyanov, Center for Humanitarian Research, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, European University at St. Petersburg
Expecting, knowing and believing: Europeans waiting for public transport in the era of ‘smart stations’

Fluid and busy citizens – passengers, drivers, clients, employees, customers – assume waiting an overhead time investment. Some two decades ago urban dwellers encountered diverse and multi-local practices of waiting – in front of the cash desk at a railway station, on the bench in policlinic, at the market stall with a deficient good. In the age of digitalization, waiting is reduced or even exterminated from many spheres by the growing presence of online-shopping, electronic queues, Internet appointments and GPS real-time tracking software. Nevertheless, urban public transport stops and cabins persist to be places of/for “unproductive” and “useless” time spending. One could suggest that we would happily give up waiting for transport and never feel sorry. What does such a statement imply and are other perspectives possible?

I am going to briefly review contemporary approaches to waiting in social sciences and mobility studies in particular. After that, I will pose the questions that partly exceed the area of transport research but seem relevant to a broader anthropological/sociological discussion: How can we classify experiences of waiting? What can studies of waiting and its effects tell us about society? How is waiting utilized as resource and tool in everyday life? Why is the passenger an exemplary urban character for these queries? The concluding part of the presentation will deal with the methodology and ethics of field research on waiting. Here I will draw on the project that is now at the doorstep of field data collection and will seek to understand the transformation of passengering experiences in big Russian cities. Particularly, I will share some ideas on the potential of new media tools in informants’ self-observation.