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the rules governing life on the tracks. Commuting
may be readily equated with the rat race,
but once on the train, people tend to demonstrate
high levels of tolerance for one another.
This works as long as the laws of hospitality are
respected. The risk of going to far and fueling
feelings of hostility always exists, but as Derrida
argued (2000 & 2001), hostility and violence are
inevitably built-in components of hospitality. Absolute
hospitality seems to be an impossibility.
Hosts always set limits. They do not just accept
anyone, for any length of time, to do whatever
they like. And guests always have the potential of
becoming threats. This is the dilemma of hospitality,
and this is part of the tension built into the
commute.
The commute is a routinized activity conducted
day after day in nearly the exact same manner.
But in contrast to routines such as doing the dishes,
or making the bed, the commute is a routine
of a different sort because no two commutes are
exactly the same. It is a public routine, and thus
a social routine. Implicitly, each day brings with
it a new challenge of constructing a new home,
next to a new neighbor. In light of its reputation,
perhaps the most surprising thing about the train
commute is that it works for so many people day
94 Commute
after day, and that we as ethnologists know so
little about how this is culturally organized and
handled.
Nearly ten years ago, in 1997, James Clifford argued
for a need for social scientists to develop a
better understanding of the phenomenon he called
“dwelling in travel” (1997:36). At the time, however,
he was somewhat strained in his attempt to
discuss and illustrate the phenomenon (see the
discussion in Clifford 1997:44). Part of the problem
he encountered, I would assert, was caused
by his own perspective which all too heavily focused
upon grand forms of travel, and very explicitly
different forms of living (when pressed on the issue,
he invoked a family of Hawaiian musicians, the
Moe, who spent their lives traveling around the
world and playing music, to exemplify his discussion).
As Elizabeth Shove has argued (2003:1), social
scientists have been highly preoccupied with
studying that which is explicit and dramatic, but
less interested in the inconspicuous routines and
praxes that saturate daily life. In focusing upon
the train commute here, my intention has been
to underline the fact that dwelling in travel is
not necessarily a phenomenon that is very exotic;
most of us do it daily, but hardly reflect upon it.
However, my intention has also been to reproble-