Rhythms, sociabilities and transience of sexual harassment in transport: mobilities perspectives of the London underground

Abstract

This article presents an in-depth analysis of women’s experiences of sexual harassment in public transport based on 29 qualitative interviews with victims on the London Underground. The article draws on mobility studies to develop an innovative theoretical framework and identifies three key features of experiences of sexual harassment in this space. First, the rhythms of the city (i.e. rush hours and night time) and the Underground facilitated and concealed different forms of sexual harassment. Second, women frequently did not respond to sexual harassment due to respecting the urban civil inattention prevailing on the tube, accentuated by unwillingness to disrupt their fellow passengers’ and their own urban trajectories. Third, the transitory nature of the Underground created a situation in which women barely fully registered harassment before it had passed, anticipated it to be over quickly and meant that the perpetrators could disappear into the network. The article suggests that these characteristics of sexual harassment in public transport account for its endemic and underreported nature and offers analytical insights for research on sexual harassment in different context and on different crimes in transport environments.

Keywords:

• Gender
• mobilities
• public transport
• rhythm
• sexual harassment

Acknowledgements

The researchers would like to thank all the women who took part in this research and shared their experiences with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was partly funded by the Police Innovation Fund and Loughborough University’s research facilitation funds.

Notes on contributors

Sian Lewis

Dr Sian Lewis is an Associate Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology at the University of Roehampton. She completed her PhD at Loughborough University from the School of Social Sciences. Her thesis focused on women’s experiences of sexual harassment on the London Underground.

Paula Saukko

Dr Paula Saukko is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University, UK. Her work has focused on health, digital media and gender, and she uses sociological and cultural studies and mobilities approaches. She is the author of Doing Research in Cultural Studies (Sage) and The Anorexic Self (SUNY Press) and has published widely in journals, such as New Media and Society, Mobilities and Sociology of Health and Illness.

Karen Lumsden

Dr Karen Lumsden is Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is Chair of the Editorial Board of Sociological Research Online and is on the Editorial Board of Sociology. She is author of Boy Racer Culture (2013) and Reflexivity: Theory, Method and Practice (2019) and editor of Reflexivity in Criminological Research (2014) and Online Othering (2019). She has published in international journals including: The British Journal of Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Sociology, Mobilities, Sociological Research Online, Policing & Society and Qualitative Research. Her research interests and expertise include policing, victims, online hate and social media, ethnography and reflexivity.