Trained Identities: Exploring Emergent Identities Aboard One Slow‐Moving Train

Abstract

Summary This article explores processes of identity negotiation through talk and body language among a small community of travelers aboard a cross‐country train. I explore the emergent and contingent nature of narrative as well as the role of body language and silence in the construction of self and other in a space separate from the usual social networks that inform our senses of self. I argue that aboard the train we were able to invent ourselves anew, making of ourselves what we wanted with the understanding that we would never meet again and that our stories could go largely unchecked. At the same time, I note the importance of structural identity markers in our storytelling and place‐making actions.

Arctic roads and railways: social and environmental consequences of transport infrastructure in the circumpolar North

“…Travel does not only support and facilitate social networks between people living in different locations, but also new social relations and identities that are shaped while people are "on the move." The experiences of different types of travel, from hitchhiking and everyday commuting (Butcher 2011), to long-distance train rides (Leggett 2019) and trucking along major haul roads (tote roads) for resource development (Brown and Berg 1980), engender different types of interactions between passengers, and between passengers and the means of transport (Fisch 2018).…”