Space is political, but it is depoliticised. We have gone beyond the point of harsh segregation (debatable) that decided who to Other and who to listen to. In my metro journey towards my destination, I am reminded of how my body takes up space, which can be interpreted as an act of protest, a bold becoming. We speak loud and it becomes a social statement. Our ‘right to the city’ is a negotiation: what city? Whose city? Why (are you in this city)?
“The force of thundering drum and bass and the howling, raging man’s voice intoning ‘Ready for war’ over and over was a soldier’s power, was itself a desire for war, a hyper vigilance that was a high, a readiness for anything, an armor made out of attitude” — Rebecca Solnit in Recollections of my nonexistence. The excerpt came to mind as I hear the rumblings caused by football fans on the other side of the carriage, how the fans are enabled and encouraged by their brotheren to be loud and messy, to instigate unwanted conversations and take up audable and physical space. Images are conjured up in my mind: peace and tranquillity divided, tectonic plates shake, nations draw harsh lines of geographic annex— women at war within the liminality of public space. Wishing to “be the armour and not the vulnerability behind it”, I am reminded of my feminine body in public transport, and this experience as a pressure cooker of unpredictability, of uncertain peace. I am wedged in between (and reminded of) bodies on this metro.
The liminality of public transport stands in two ways: transport as liminality between origin and destination, and transport as a vessel restricting bodily movement, a space of uncertain bodily autonomy. Space is not inherently gendered, but entitlement to it can be. The historical residues of conquest and its justification linger in public spaciality and entitlement. It is man’s lane, road, and geographic annex— they are public (available) to him, thus are the beings that linger within his geography. And yet all is ‘culture’— it would not have been an annex of territory coming from nature, nor would it have ever been dichotomous; the coin has two sides but it is one coin (an alloy of raw materials, but ultimately man-made).
The situation of being physically restricted on the metro evokes frustrating recallings that I am once again thinking of more: calculating the space in between me and his man spread, trying hard to accomodate for enough space so I would not be breathing in another’s direction while he clearly breathes in mine, trying to keep to myself with one hand on the pole while his whole back leans in, on edge because in the back of my mind a slip of an eyecontract could be misinterpreted as an invitation to talk, laugh, ask where I’m from, be closer than necessary.
I want to take up more space but at the same time there is danger in it. In a visceral sense we all take up some amount of space, some of us just need to calculate more than others. Is it for my own comfortability? Or just in solidarity with the other uncomfortable bodies that I sense on the metro on this forsaken day (Ajax game)? I shall end with a poem (still on this metro):
In the essence of taking up space, something differs.
It is historical conditioning and entitlement all together.
As bodies that take up space, we coercively forget how we interact with the bodies that breathe a different amount, that hurt a different amount; bodies that are constantly resisting. Our bodies are ours, though we are not singular— that we tend to forget.
We are taught to be small, to be bold but withdrawn. We are told to fold into ourselves, but to never keep our beauty to ourselves. Our space is sacred, safe, and considerate.
Confine yourself to smallness, hush and fold. Undo yourself, unto yourself.
Or please, don’t.
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