Becoming A Subway User: Managing Affects And Experiences

This paper focuses on a subway user, one of the main characters of mundane mobility in big cities. It is based on the field research conducted by the author in two Russian cities (Moscow and Kazan) in 2013-2014. The subway is considered not only as public transportation, but more broadly as a regulation tool that is used by homo mobilis to construct a wide network of relationships: with a city, with time, with one's daily activities. The notion of “affect management” - the urbanite's ability to manage their own emotional states and experiences - is suggested to describe the role of the subway in everyday life planning.