“Oyinbo, Wole!”: Urban Rhythms and Mobile Encounters in the Lagos Transport Systems

Abstract

Drawing on personal passengering experiences in the danfo (minibus) system as well as across other transport systems in Lagos, this paper will shed light on nuanced subjectivities of passengers navigating rhythms of urban mobilities in Lagos. The focus of rhythms in this paper can provide a holistic and relational interpretation of ordinary passengers’ daily mobilities in Lagos transport systems. Over the time of changing means of transportation in Lagos, urban mobilities are seemingly more and more formalized and regulated. However, the conception of formal-informal dichotomy, I argue, does not articulate the complexity of urban rhythms. An alternative interpretation is that different forms of urban rhythms are overlapped in everyday mobilities. From the experiential perspective of passengering, (re)arrangement of personal rhythms is more common than resistance against either formality or structured informality. Socio-spatial improvisation of rhythms of urban mobilities is based on social consensus in everyday encounters in which I also engage, as an ordinary passenger but also specially situated actor among local city residents. According to my autoethnographic accounts of encounters, I will illustrate how the consensus is implicated in various embodied interactions, in terms of language, gesture, and movements, which unfolds horizontal power dynamics among people in the mobile encounters.