Please refer to the definitive version of this article when citing:
Jensen, M.T., Scarles, C. & Cohen, S.A. (2015). A multisensory phenomenology of interrail
mobilities. Annals of Tourism Research, 53, 61-76, DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2015.04.002
A multisensory phenomenology of interrail mobilities
Martin Trandberg Jensen
Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark
Caroline Scarles
Scott A. Cohen
School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Abstract
This paper suggests that phenomenological studies of tourism mobilities can be informed by nonrepresentational approaches. We extend recent developments in sensory tourism research and nonrepresentational works to argue that methods upon which tourism researchers have long relied require
‘pushing’ or merging in previously underutilised ways that support these emerging areas of study. As
a result, this paper embraces embodied methodologies. It integrates audio-visual impressionistic tales
and netnographic snippets to shape its multisensory exploration of an under-researched European
tourism and train travel phenomenon, interrailing. Our analysis exemplifies how the rhythmscapes
and soundscapes of everyday rail travel inform the experience of interrail. Finally, we introduce the
concept of thermalscapes, giving attention to the relatively neglected role of temperatures in tourism
experiences.
Keywords: Non-representational; Rhythms; Sounds; Temperatures; Audio-visual methods; Interrail
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Introduction
“You must learn to heed your senses. Humans use but a tiny percentage of theirs. They barely look, they
rarely listen, they never smell…But they talk, oh, do they talk.”
Scott, M., The Alchmyst, 2007, p. 149
Modern tourism is often viewed as constitutive of modernity’s mobility (Larsen, 2001). It has
been argued that train travel dilutes travel sensations (Schivelbusch, 1986). Drawing upon Boorstin
(1987) and Buzard (1993), Larsen (2001, p. 83) notes how: “the tourist who sat inside the train ceased
to be a traveller, a sensuous subject, and became, as noted in the popular metaphor of the century, a
mere ‘parcel’: a blind object, who was only thinking about arriving at her/his destination, arriving as
s/he left, untouched by the space traversed.” Others situate the narratives of rail spaces outside of the
normal routines and practices of everyday life (Kirby, 1997), or within behaviouristic frameworks
(Givoni & Rietveld, 2007), reducing rail travel to a symbolic experience or a mere linear transport
function.
In recent years, however, tourism mobilities research has questioned such claims, providing
examples of how tourism mobility is not only a trivial question of overcoming distance; it is also a
way of being in, sensing and experiencing various landscapes (Larsen, 2001; Roy & Hannam, 2013).
Whilst these contributions have arguably worked to showcase the performative and nonrepresentational dimensions of mobility, others have cautioned such approaches for generating an
“overanimated [sic] mobile subject” (Merriman, 2014, p. 177). Indeed, waiting, slowness and even
boredom can be just as important to ‘mobile situations’ as can those of speed, excitement and
exhilaration (ibid.). This reminds us that immobilities, fixities and moorings, such as platforms,
management systems and rail lines, configure and enable mobilities in the first place (Adey, 2006;
Hannam, Sheller, & Urry, 2006).
With these reflections in mind this paper offers three primary contributions. Firstly, we
interrelate sensuous tourism research (Crang, 2003; Crouch & Desforges, 2003; Edensor, 2007a) and
non-representational approaches (Xiao, Jafari, Cloke, & Tribe, 2013) to further inform tourism
mobilities research (Hannam, Butler, & Paris, 2014). More specifically, this contribution derives from
the novel application of a multisensory phenomenology inspired by the experimental aspirations of
research framed within non-representational theory (NRT), to an under-researched tourism and rail
travel phenomenon: interrailing (Fernandes, Sarmento, & Matias, 2013; Johnson, 2010; Klingbeil,
1994). Secondly, to meet this end we originally employ audio-visual impressionistic tales (Van
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Maanen, 1988; Vannini & Taggart, 2013) and netnographic insights (Kozinets, 2010) to inform the
understanding of tourism mobilities. We do so in response to suggestions that there is a: “narrowness
in our understanding and representation of tourism” (Tribe, 2008, p. 924). Contributing to recent
research that has adopted embodied methods as an opportunity to engage with and explore
multisensual experiences (Bissell, 2010; Edensor & Holloway, 2008), this approach draws on the first
author’s own travel experiences as well as interrailers’ perspectives to elucidate the rhythmscapes
(Edensor & Holloway, 2008; Rantala & Valtonen, 2014) and soundscapes (Duffy, Waitt, GormanMurray, & Gibson, 2011; Waitt & Duffy, 2010) of interrailing. Lastly, a further contribution to
knowledge emerges as we focus on the sensuous influence of temperatures in this context, proposing
the concept of thermalscapes to inform the relatively neglected role of temperatures in tourism
research.
Each of these will be addressed as the paper first elaborates on the representational efforts
embedded in the phenomenological tradition in tourism research. Secondly, it then clarifies the links
between NRT and phenomenology to construct the conceptual framework for a multisensory
phenomenology. Thirdly, in the spirit of the opening quote and of recent developments in embodied
methodologies, the paper then provides an empirical exposition of interrail which animates
representations by rendering a sense of place, and a poetics of movement, in a way which words alone
would fail (see for example Latham & McCormack, 2009; Scarles, 2010; Vannini & Taggart, 2013).
Similar to other attempts integrating data via hyperlinks in publications (Tribe, 2008) we recommend
reading this paper in its electronic version, with an internet connection, in order to access some of the
empirical material. Hyperlinked examples are followed by an audio symbol (♫) or a video symbol
(▶). To gain access to these, click on the underlined sentence (while holding down the ctrl button).
NRT, phenomenology and embodied methodologies in tourism research
Phenomenology has been widely used with the aim of exploring the meanings, understandings
and textual interpretations constituting the phenomena under study (Pernecky & Jamal, 2010),
thereby attempting to: “reveal some enlightening…insights…through a systematic attempt to uncover
and describe the structures and the meanings of a lived experience” (Curtin, 2006, p. 303). Drawing
on symbolic interactionism (Hayllar & Griffin, 2005; Masberg & Silverman, 1996; Uriely &
Belhassen, 2006), such an approach reveals apparent significances through interviews and
language—most often respondents’ reflections with regards to destinations or events. Accordingly,
the traits of social constructivism preoccupy phenomenology with the aim of identifying structures
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of symbolic meaning and sociocultural significances (Andriotis, 2009; Li, 2000). A majority of
tourism phenomenologies consequently carry a trace of “representationalism, or, discursive idealism”
(Dewsbury, Harrison, Rose, & Wylie, 2002, p. 438) through which the key focus is on what things
symbolise—what they denote and connote, what codes they inform, what values they defer and refer
to (Vannini, n. d.).
Providing a different approach, this paper extends a range of recent tourism contributions that
have sought to enrich the ‘traditional’ methodological reliance on interviews, surveys or focus group
discussions. This includes the integration of sensory ethnography into visual tourism research (Scarles,
2010); studying via the senses the ways of embodying and identifying Britishness in Spanish charters
(Andrews, 2005); describing the crafting of places through smells (Dann & Jacobsen, 2003); and
reflecting on the role of reflexivity and confessional writing styles to acknowledge bodily sensations
during research (Cohen, 2013). Recently, the 40th anniversary editorial of Annals of Tourism
Research called for further attention to the “embodied emotions, performances and affects that are an
integral part of being tourist” (Xiao et al., 2013, p. 373).
Contributing to this current of critical sensory research, this paper contends that the prevailing
symbolism and textual interpretation in tourism phenomenologies can be further developed to shed
light on “…how life takes shape and gains expression in everyday routines, and sensuous dispositions”
(Lorimer, 2005, p. 84; Obrador Pons, 2003). Thus, we propose that understanding, appreciation and
engagement with multisensual and performative spaces of touristic experiences can be further
enriched by extending existing applications of phenomenology to embrace the opportunities afforded
by non-representational approaches to being in the world, and it is towards these we now turn.
Multisensory phenomenology: intertwining phenomenology and the non-representational
“It is striking that despite the overwhelming geographical focus of space as text or symbolic representation,
the most common spatial experience is that sensed through everyday life.”
Edensor, 2007b, p. 206
Multisensory phenomenology draws on a Merleau-Pontian ( 1962) reading of phenomenology
that emphasises the sensing body as the primary site of knowing the world. From this perspective,
multisensory phenomenology is intimately linked to more recent non-representational approaches as
it understands lived experiences as based upon a composition of practical and embodied subjectivities
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(Anderson & Harrison, 2010). Indeed, as Cadman (2009) and Waterton (2012) argue,
nonrepresentational geographies have been heavily informed by Heideggerian and Merleau-Pontian
engagements with phenomenology which propose that we are always-already thrown into the world
and inseparable from it. Along these lines, multisensory phenomenology focuses on situated events,
affective states and everyday performances (Vannini, 2015 ; Wylie, 2005), which in effect:
“…takes representation seriously; representation not as a code to be broken or as an illusion to be dispelled
rather representations are apprehended as performative in themselves; as doings. The point here is to
redirect attention from the posited meaning towards the material compositions and conduct of
representations.”
Dewsbury et al., 2002, p. 438
By drawing attention to the non-representational, phenomenologies of tourism cannot be treated
as discursive constructs through minds devoid of corporeality (Carolan, 2008). Rather, focus falls on
the sensuous, the affective and the everyday practices of tourist experiences. In the context of such
constructivism and relationality, multisensory phenomenology entails a situated, sensuous and nonrepresentational epistemology. Ingold (1995, p. 58) asserts that something: “…must be wrong
somewhere, if the only way to understand our own creative involvement in the world is by taking
ourselves out of it”. This reminds us that material and affective realms must also become visible to
the body before we can conceive of them. Yet such corporeal shift requires new modes of
rendition and engagement. In this respect, multisensory phenomenology draws upon the experimental
tenets associated with NRT which seek to animate and enliven representations in artful and creative
ways (Latham & McCormack, 2009; Shortt, 2013; Vannini, 2015).
In tourism research the relational bodies that populate multisensory phenomenology link to
Edensor’s conceptualisation of ‘touristscapes’ (Edensor, 2007b). This spatial notion allows for
critical explorations of the everyday, familiar spaces of habits, routines and sensuous dispositions
constituting tourism phenomena. Hence, touristscapes conceptualise space as a “concrete and
sensuous concatenation of material forces” (Wylie, 2002, p. 251), which possesses an agency to
impact upon those who dwell and move within it (see also Ahmed, 2004; Bissell, 2010; Massumi,
2002). Building on this, Edensor (2007b) suggests that it is the temperatures, atmospheres, smells and
sounds that encourage humans to specific courses of action. Aligned to the multisensory framework
of this paper, we adapt the idea of touristscapes to explore three particular sensescapes that inform
tourism: rhythmscapes, soundscapes and thermalscapes.
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Researching through rhythms, sounds and temperatures
In order to investigate the concept of rhythms, or rhythmscapes, research has principally drawn
on Lefebvre’s seminal work on rhythm-analysis (2004). Here, Lefebvre identifies how the everyday
is comprised of intersecting rhythms, including isorhythmic (repetitive) and arrhythmical (irregular)
flows. Importantly, such rhythms are conceptualised as imposed upon subjects, but equally organic
and experienced through the living body. Inspired by this work, Edensor and Holloway (2008)
unravel the rhythmic qualities of taking a coach tour by highlighting the carnal experience of both
mobility and situatedness, and the ways in which they are blended through rhythms. Focus has also
been given to the travel disorientation induced by rhythmical transitions (Anderson, 2015), and the
rhythms of sleeping in nature (Rantala & Valtonen, 2014). At a conceptual level, rhythm has been
proposed as a central dimension within a larger framework for a politics of mobility (Cresswell, 2010).
Rhythms, Cresswell argues, have the quality of bringing to mind a phenomenology of mobility as
simultaneously organic, lived, and endogenous and exterior, imposed, and mechanical.
Soundscapes, like rhythmscapes, are central to lived experiences. Sound, however, is often
reduced to the discursive, and in this reduction, the material relations present in our experience of
sound are not fully attended to (Simpson, 2009). Some exceptions are Duffy et al.’s (2011)
exploration of the embodied role of listening in connecting festival spaces and people, and Hannam
et al.’s (2014) exemplification of how the noise of fieldwork recordings is an important part of making
findings more intelligible and sensible. Accordingly, sonic spaces are not merely places where the
subject comes to make her/himself heard, on the contrary, every place can be seen as a sonorous
subject insofar as sound resounds there (Blesser & Salter, 2007). Kanngieser (2012) argues that
auditory reverberations and reflections have place-producing qualities, as auditory flows are folded
through the material densities and gaps modulating and refracting sounds and voices in peculiar ways.
Yet, whereas we know much about “measuring acoustic processes and sensory detection, we know
less about the phenomenology of aural space” (Blesser & Salter, 2007, p. 11).
Intersecting both rhythmscapes and soundscapes is the centrality of what we term thermalscapes.
This particular scape focuses on the role of temperatures, a sensuous domain only marginally touched
upon in relation to tourism (Edensor, 2007b). Studies on tourism and temperatures focus
predominantly on travel decisions (Gössling, Bredberg, Randow, Sandström, & Svensson, 2006;
Maddison, 2001), the perception of weather and expected comfort levels (Mansfeld, Freundlich, &
Kutiel, 2007) and on larger links between tourism and the climate system (Gössling, 2002; Martin &
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Belén, 2005). Our multisensory phenomenology, however, sees tourism as always emplaced in
thermal environments in which bodies, materials and practices are ordered, influenced and affected
by temperatures (McCormack, 2008).
Set in the context of interrail, the exploration of these three intermingled sensescapes allows
for an original multisensory phenomenological approach to emerge. To illustrate how we engage with
such aims in practice, we now turn to the context and methodology underpinning this study.
Context and methodology
Backpacking around Europe is often closely related with ‘interrailing’ (Johnson, 2010). The
Interrail concept, or for non-European travellers, Eurail, dates back to 1959 when the first Eurail pass
was distributed. Eurail global passes can be purchased by non-European residents and cover 24
European countries, whereas the Interrail global pass, for European citizens, enables train travel in
30 European countries. Global passes come in a variety of types ranging from ‘10 day passes’ to up
to three month continuous passes. Originally set in pro-European political landscapes, ingrained with
visions of free movement and the narrowing of national jurisdictions, the interrail concept was born
to support intercultural exchange between primarily young travellers. Today interrail is
predominantly used by Western European and relatively young travellers, but also include families
and senior travellers (Eurail representative, personal communication, 22-07-2014). Importantly,
interrail is not an isolated rail travel experience but is enmeshed in the everyday life on the longestablished European rail network, as pass-holders travel on the same trains and routes as ‘locals’,
commuters and other tourists. In this sense, the ordinary and mundane ‘seep into’ and inform the
travel experiences of interrailing as touristic and everyday spaces become blurred (Franklin & Crang,
2001). In these contexts, ‘spotting’ interrailers is most often associated with the observation of
particular travel practices (such as filling-in interrail passes, wearing interrail armbands or studying
the interrail rail map of Europe). Yet while the phenomenon is imprinted in the minds of three
generations of Western travellers, the phenomenology of the actual rail experiences have been left
largely untouched in favour of more enclavic backpacking theorisations, leaving out the more
dynamic and everyday features of rail travel (Johnson, 2010).
From fieldnotes to impressionistic tales
Macbeth (2001) and Feighery (2006) argue that positional reflexivity is central to understanding
how analysis is shaped. The empirical part of this paper is based upon a research project exploring
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the role of senses and affects in interrail experiences. Its ethnographic findings derive from two
sources, multi-sited ethnography and netnography, which we intertwine in presenting the paper’s
empirical material.
Firstly, we draw on the lead author’s travel experiences deriving from three months of multisited ethnography covering 28,000 km of rail lines across 23 European countries in June–August,
2013. These reflective narratives, voiced as ‘impressionistic tales’ (Van Maanen, 1988), derive from
a European and relatively young, white male perspective, who had interrailed twice, in 2007 and 2013,
leading up to the main fieldwork. Whilst we recognize that issues such as gender and age directly
influence the role of the multisensory experience of interrail (and indeed deserves further attention),
our impressionistic tales are limited to the in-depth and multimodal experiences of the lead author,
whose age mirrors rather closely that of the majority of interrail pass-holders. To nuance these
understandings, conversations and interviews were conducted with a range of interrailers of different
gender and ages, to provide insight into the wider range of experiences by fellow travellers. The
fieldwork was carried out during the interrail high season and covered the majority of, as well as most
frequently travelled, interrail countries in continental Europe. As such, this reflexively informed
ethnographic account unfolded as a fusion of first-hand experiences, ephemeral travel conversations,
observations and audio-visual recordings (for their ability to enrich the representation of multisensory
spaces). The stories and themes emerging from this work were documented through extensive
fieldnotes written during train travel, or during late evenings and early mornings at various transit
points (such as hostels, platforms and cafés) , and were made with the research aims in mind.
Rather than representing these experiences as traditional textual and first-person fieldnotes, we
draw on impressionistic tales (see Van Maanen, 1988) and the imaginary potentials associated with
such a writing style (Vannini & Taggart, 2013). Allowing the actual travel experiences of the lead
author to be animated through the second-person, ‘you’, seeks to induce in the reader a suspended
reading that stimulates memories from the past, inducing the multiplicities of personal origins to the
tales told (Bachelard, 1958). Inspired by the reflexive turn in the ethnographic tradition (Clifford &
Marcus, 1986; Geertz, 1973), the aim of impressionistic tales is then to draw the audience into an
(un)familiar story and allow the reader, as far as possible, to see, hear, and feel what the fieldworker
saw, heard and felt in order to generate reflexive interpretation of embodied experiences (Scarles,
2010). As representation is almost always on the side of the one who looks, this reporting style seeks
to: “…re-mark the performative possibilities of writing itself. The act of writing towards
disappearance, rather than…toward preservation” (Phelan, 1993, p. 148). Consequently, readers
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become ‘imaginative voyagers’ (Scarles, 2009, p. 472) enlivening representations and making places
legible. This seeks to make “the world come alive, and to give it back its sensuous performativity, the
very performativity that much too often traditional research sucks away” (Vannini, 2012, p. 28).
In practice, six impressionistic tales have been ‘written up’. Each arises from a combination of
fieldwork experiences as well as post-hoc reflections on the sensory traits (such as warm
compartments, smells or the feeling of fatigue) that were collectively performed as interplays between
interrailers and everyday travellers. Whilst other tales could have been used, we selectively recalled
these six impressions for their ability to animate multisensory spaces of interrail which were recurrent
conversational topics during the fieldwork. The tales are used as a representational means of cracking
open the non-representational and affective spaces of interrail. The tales intertwine audio-visual
material (via YouTube and SoundCloud) collected during train travel and use these rich examples to
capture the inherent multisensuality of experiences in ways that discrete methods would not allow.
Through these recordings we are less concerned with what meaning we can discern from the
combination of sounds and sights. Rather voice should be given to the complex relations between
sound, thus listening to “…its materiality, rhythm, and timbre, and how this resonates in us” (Simpson,
2009, p. 2571) and overwhelms us through a variety of affects. This relates to geographical work
(Kanngieser, 2012) suggesting that an ‘acoustic politics of space’ is cogent in times when “affect
contaminates empirical space through language” (Massumi, 2002, p. 62). That said, however, a key
aspect of our argument is that the lived body cannot be treated through discrete senses. It is, from the
first, a perceptive body (Sobchack, 1992).
Netnography and the tales of other travellers
In order to access the nuances of the impressionistic tales, the analysis also draws on
netnography, which remains an underutilized method in tourism research (Mkono & Markwell 2014).
The paper employs ‘archival netnographic data’ (Kozinets, 2010, p. 104) of the Interrail Facebook
Group, spanning 2008–2014. The lead author did not actively participate in the online forum from
which data is gathered, rather forum conversations were continuously studied, and 53 statements
concerning the role of the senses during interrail travel were collected and analysed through a
thematic analysis of recurrent themes (Beaven & Laws, 2007; Mkono, 2011). Through this process
the data was organised around three themes relating to interrailers’ accounts of rhythms, sounds and
temperatures. The final step involved weaving together the netnographic snippets, which are all
represented anonymously through the use of pseudonyms, with the audio-visual impressionistic tales.
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The paper’s findings are presented in this interwoven manner, so as to enrich the impressionistic tales
by illustrating the routines and ad-hoc practices of interrailers.
Our main intention in integrating audio-visual impressionistic tales and netnographic insights
is to demonstrate how non-representational concerns can inject into phenomenologies a willingness
“…to experiment with established, indeed quite traditional, methods to create innovative, insightful
methodological hybrids” (Latham, 2003, p. 1993). As such, this work is intended to pave a route for
further methodological experimentation in tourism research. With these considerations in mind, the
following findings illustrate how a multisensory phenomenology of interrail unfolds.
Rhythmscapes
Envision yourself having travelled thousands of kilometres on primarily regional trains across Europe. Now,
you find yourself standing in front of your first high-speed rail experience, boarding the TGV train in Lyon
heading towards Paris. Paradoxically, a few minutes afterdeparture you find yourself nauseous. Next to you,
a recently purchased bottle of water stands. You look at the bottle, observing its gentle movements▶ aligned
to those of the train. Besides this, there are few indicators of movement. No repetitive bumps on the tracks;
no soft swaggering from side-to-side; no roaring diesel engine (everything runs on electricity here). Sitting
there, you think back to the regional train, a few days prior, between Bologna and Milan. You evocatively
picture your water bottle at that time, speaking back to you through frantic movements►, providing flashbacks
to the life of compartment curtains►, coat hangers► and cables► on earlier travels.
Impressionistic tale, August, 2013
Coordinated through the states of the railway, the types of seats available, the train machinery,
the range of situated materialities and sensing interrailers, particular rhythmscapes are produced. On
one occasion, an interrailer who was forced to take motion sickness medication was suffering from
increasing nausea due to the subtle, monotonous movements of the train carriage. In many others
incidences, the gentle motions of the train, the relaxed atmosphere in the compartments, and the
steady crossing of large distances, softly rocked interrailers, and many other train travellers (Picture
1), to a much-needed rest, underlining how mundane rail space ‘seeps into’ the travel experiences of
interrailers (Franklin & Crang, 2001).
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Picture 1 Blurred touristic/everyday space—young interrailer and local.
Thus, rhythms are integral to the spatio-temporal experience of interrail. This supports
Anderson’s (2015) observations that travel (dis)orientation occurs as the holistic consequences of
leaving one set of socio-spatial relations and moving to another. As ‘transient outsiders’ (Meethan,
2003), interrailers seldom acquire the crucial knowledge and understanding of local travel practice in
ways that locals do, and this leads to rhythmical discontinuities. In practice, this manifests as
interrailers move inbetween transient spaces including the specific pulse of urban experiences to the
rhythmical consistencies of particular trains; it occurs during the immobilisation of waiting time,
delays and cancellations at train stations; and in the moments of being late, franticly navigating train
stations to find departure platforms in time.
Yet rhythms are also embodied through subtle, playful travel practices. Louise (Facebook, 2709-12) explains how they killed travel time by playing a game of: “Trying to figure out signs we’re
passing by full speed”. This practice materialises as vivid head movements from side to side and
flickering eyes trying to determine the signs passed. In the composition between the speed and
materiality of the train, the interrailer and the frequencies and intervals of signs, rhythm is embodied
and co-produced. This is an everyday example of how rhythms organically emerge from the:
“emplaced engagement with the material, sensory, social and cultural contexts in which we dwell”
(Pink, 2007, p. 62). The crucial point here is that in the rhythms of ‘doing tourism’, much of what is
done does not represent a symbolic order or phenomenological ‘essence’ of practice (Anderson &
Harrison, 2010). In this respect, multisensory phenomenology, informed by the non-representational,
allows for the exploration of everyday spaces constructed through representation as embodied
performances, animated through novel methodological hybrids.
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This impressionistic tale also shows how: “Each rhythm is folded with a series of forces,
materialities, sensations and visual registers, marshalled through multiple corporeal and incorporeal,
human and non-human assemblages that take on different intensities, speeds and textures through
different phases and spaces” (Edensor & Holloway, 2008, p. 499). By studying how rhythms are
dispersed onto things it illustrates how research can study materialities “as one listens to a symphony,
an opera” (Lefebvre, 2004, p. xii). In order to further understand the affective and subtle engagements
with rhythms, we argue that the tenuous ‘pulses’ of mundane materialities (see the audio-visual
recordings of curtains, coat hangers and cables) merge with subjective apprehensions wherein time
can appear to slow down, speed up or disorder habituated rhythms (Edensor & Holloway, 2008).
From such a perspective rhythm is both mediated and governed by technologies and in contact with
what is least rational in human beings, the lived, the carnal, the sensing body (ibid.).
The impressionistic account also illustrates how the experience of rhythm can be disorienting
due to the subtle juxtaposition of the embodied rhythm of (regional) train travel and the ‘mechanical
velocity’ (Larsen, 2001, p. 83) and the apparent rhythmlessness of the TGV train. Anderson (2015)
reminds us how bodily rhythms exhibit a kind of lingering memory which resist change and, to keep
you running smoothly, cling to the same old familiar schedules of movement. When habituated
rhythmscapes are altered, rhythmic discords are confronted at the transition stage (Edensor &
Holloway, 2008). Sara (Facebook, 15-09-11) provides a rich recall: “Night train from Venice to
Budapest. Had five passport and ticket checks during the night, ranging from midnight to 4am. Saw
two backpackers escorted off the train by police. Not exactly the most pleasant/comfortable journey
in the world”. Long-term immobilisations during border crossings, or abrupt interruptions of passport
controls on night trains, create rhythmical disjunctions that interrailers experience repeatedly, serving
as reminders that mobilities are indeed regulated by institutional fixities, surveillance systems and
control (Adey, 2004, 2006).
In tiring occasions of train travel, interrailers were seen staring absent-mindedly at a range of
nearby materialities, rhythmical mediators which induced relaxed or even meditative states of travel.
This relates to the act of gazing or glancing out compartment windows (Larsen, 2001), another
habitual practice of interrailers.
Envision yourself en route to Austria, through Northern Italian landscapes. As the train runs parallel to
some electricity cables, the rhythmical synchronicity of the cables, as experienced through the moving train,
produces a waved line▶ that together with the situated sounds encapsulate a particular embodied rhythm.
On other days, other routes, different atmospheres, try to imagine daydreaming on grey days. Tranquil and
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comforted by the sounds and movements of rain drops carving their way across windows▶. Imagine
daydreaming, thinking back on travel experiences, listening to music, with eyes fluctuating to follow the
numerous rain drops as they transversally move across the transparent surface.
Impressionistic tale, July, 2013
Through audio-visual accounts of electricity cables and rain drops, we show how a multisensory
phenomenology animates materialities through the lived ambience, tempo and repetitions emplaced
in interrail and rail travel in general. Borrowing Lefebvre’s (2004) terminology, the first example
showcases the repetitive, almost isorhythmic movements of the electricity cable. We go on to show
how raindrops on compartment windows arrhythmically co-generate a situated rhythmscape
interwoven with the subtle movements of the train and the affective geography of the localised
experience. These empirical characterisations also illustrate how interrail is enwritten into the very
banal experience of everyday rail travel and is constructed through the complex coordination of
embodied, materially informed and technologically mediated rhythms, repetitions and frequencies.
This reminds us that while the train indeed does provide a cinematic vision which interjects a
particular spatio-temporal image (Haldrup & Larsen, 2009), it does not “impoverish the other senses”
(ibid., p. 72), but continuously rearranges the ways through which the perceptive body registers. To
further strengthen this multisensory claim, the following section explores the intermingled role of
soundscapes.
Soundscapes
Envision yourself on a night train, more specifically the IR383, leaving Bucharest, Romania, every day
close to midnight, commencing its 10-hour journey towards the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Imagine having
waited for hours at the station, and now increasingly tired you find yourself craving to catch some sleep.
As the train cuts through the darkness of the countryside, you take off your shoes; perhaps you use your
jacket as a blanket; perhaps you jam some shirts together to form a temporary pillow, and with an exhausted,
slightly despairing sigh, you make a wriggle, and find yourself positioned for an ephemeral rest. The
compartment is silent, and the only auditory evidences of movement are the sounds of the train moving
through the night♫. Sleeping only vaguely, the repetitive sound reminds you that you are indeed on the
way—moving—which, after all, makes up a redeeming thought. At 2 am the train is suddenly put to a halt.
The deadening of sounds leaves a strangely noiseless and uncertain atmosphere in the wagon. You notice
your fellow travellers move their heads, groggily glancing with half-open, dreary eyes, as if to reorient
themselves on the sudden immobilisation. As the train departs, the compartment is once again enrolled into
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the monotonous sounds of the rolling train, complemented by the heavy breathing of travellers and the
opening and closing of the automatic sliding doors.
Impressionistic tale, July, 2013
A central dimension of interrailing is negotiating the challenge and discomfort of night trains
(see Pictures 2 and 3). In the previous audio file notice the vague creaking of the chassis, the metallic
seething of the heavy train running across the rails; the uninterrupted rumbling and the on-going
bumps of the wheels crossing each iron wielding of the railways. These are sonic forces that provide
dimensions, attentions and imaginations to situated experiences. During nocturnal travel, perception
goes well beyond the visual consumption of the objectified spectacle (Cook & Edensor, 2014), and
we exemplify how the complex entanglement of sound and sight nuances ocularcentric accounts of
tourism. Across these monotonous spaces of ‘doing nothing’, which are fundamental parts of
extensive interrail, Ehn & Löfgren (2010) stress how one starts to ‘see’ the social and material
surroundings in new ways. The tedious and habituated soundscape emerging from the train running
across the rails provides a ‘safe’ sonic geography for sleep, yet as the train unexpectedly halts, it
suddenly (re)activates the sensual consciousness of travellers. The transmission of affects occurring
in such sudden auditory exchanges literally change the biochemical properties of travellers, and like
in Bissell’s (2010) work on rail mobility, this is seen through a variety of bodily predispositions;
including adrenaline, tensed muscles and attentive audition. Thus, in line with the primary
contribution of this paper, we see how a multisensory phenomenology complements symbolic and
textual tourism phenomenologies through the employment of sensory and impressionistically attuned
methodologies.
14
Pictures 2–3 Catching sleep (IR 383, en route to Bulgaria).
Thomas notes: “This year I have travelled in 3 German CityNightLines and it’s impossible to
sleep in those trains; uncomfortable, people, all the night, go up and down…” (Facebook, 26-08-12).
Sharing somewhat similar experiences, Jason recalls: “I had some hours with a guy …we had a real
good talk, after he left the train, some fully drunk soccer fans bolted in and after a while I left to
search for another place.” (Facebook, 13-09-11). Besides illustrating the immanent multisensory
nature of interrail, both examples emerge from frustrating sonic ‘relations’ with disruptive copassengers. This auditory sensitivity provides an alternative to discursive approaches, since social
relations emerge through auditory (dis)engagements and expectations; it is an outcome of emplaced
sonic forces (Conradson & Latham, 2007). In this sense, soundscapes become a primary sensuous
geography through which affects are produced and circulate, generating collective atmospheric states
of relaxation, irritation, nervousness, playfulness and so forth (Ahmed, 2004). This is no different
when sleeping in couchettes:
Picture yourself having fought your way to the top bunk-bed on a night trip from Belgrade to Skopje.
Imagine that you are forced to keep the window open all night to allow for cooler air to stream inside, and
doing so, also allowing for the sounds of the old regional train♫ wagon bumping its way across the sturdy
rail-lines; the signal horns sounding for each railway crossing passed (which are all too frequent on such
regional train routes). Imagine how the otherwise dark compartment is experienced through the snoring,
15
light coughing and sniffing of travellers you hardly know in the bunk beds underneath you, reminding you
that you are not alone, and more importantly, that no one is tinkering with their (or your!) luggage.
Impressionistic tale, August, 2013
The audio file illustrates with what overwhelming force sounds embrace specific situations.
Due to the open window the sounds from the machinery of the train is ear-splitting, the horn blowing
is sudden and unsettling, and the wind moans. Some passengers materially negotiate these sonic
situations by using headphones or earplugs, others ‘bury’ themselves under jackets or talk louder to
make up for the noise. Such a soundscape is regularly experienced by interrailers when travelling in
regional trains with open windows. On these occasions, audition is highly significant as it informs
spatial understanding; the sense of arrival/departure, a sense of scheduled movement; and a sense of
mobility and immobility. This exemplifies how the rhythms and sounds of interrail function
empirically in tension between movement and mooring (Adey, 2006, p. 91; Hannam et al., 2006).
Soundscapes cannot be reduced to the study of ‘sound’ but are spatially, affectually and socially
productive as they display different expectations, habits, practices and responses. Jonas recalls:
“Worst is when you are sat next to someone chomping on crisps whilst rustling the packing in the
dead of night, when everyone else is asleep” (Facebook, 13-09-11). Such auditory disturbance
complements textual representations related to the widely neglected role of listening in tourism
research (Duffy et al., 2011). The accounts illustrate the influence of sonic spaces on interrail
interpretations, but within the aims of a multisensory phenomenology, also integrate impressionistic
accounts and audio examples to enliven the sound of the non-representational, listening to spaces and
how they resonate in us (Simpson, 2009). Through these examples, the paper proposes a ‘sonic
concern’ to be further developed in audio-visual accounts in tourism. These neglected concerns bring
us to another under-researched domain ingrained in all sensescapes, thermalscapes.
Thermalscapes
‘They are treating us like animals!’ an American woman cries out, aiming her outburst towards the train
personnel, as the heat in the compartment continues to increase. It is late July, and the central-European
summer is providing tedious temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the air-conditioning
has stopped functioning. ‘It happens every summer!’ the conductor remarks, despairingly asking everyone
to keep their windows shut, to avoid the hot air from outside interfering with the air-conditioning system.
Some people have started taking off their shirts (some children dressed only in boxers), others have found
unforeseen value in newspapers and train tickets ►, now suddenly transformed into hand-driven fans. The
16
enduring heat is leaving uncomfortable traces as sweat patches on shirts and trousers. The sighs and obvious
corporeal struggles to find thermal comfort embrace the compartment in a sensuous collectiveness. You try
to stand up, yet find yourself glued to the synthetic leather seat, in what seems to be a watery amalgamation
between you and the seat. After hours of sighs and drowsy movements, the conductor decides to let all exit
doors stay open during travel, which immediately creates a congregation of travellers standing at each door,
refreshed by the wind.
Impressionistic tale, July, 2013
The sensuous is not solely an internal resource, but is dispersed as material traces (Picture 4).
These traces are also perceptual experiences that impress upon the body, provoking yet other affective
sensations (Edensor, 2007b). Accordingly, thermalscapes, as we conceptualise the term, are not just
spaces through which bodies move, but instead a set of dynamic and kinetic affects. Temperatures,
in other words, can be looked upon through their kinetic relations: differential pressure gradients and
the velocity of molecules affecting its form (McCormack, 2008). But more important for this paper,
temperature can be approached dynamically in relation to how it slows down, speeds up and alters
human behaviour, moods and travel sensations. The video clip illustrates how a specific thermalscape
creates collective performances of swaying newspapers and tickets through which travellers try to
ensure thermal comfort. Also, in this example, the access to ‘adequate’ temperatures becomes a
fundamental resource, a human right, materialising as a sensuous subject leading to discussions
between both train personnel and travellers. This thermal influence is central to interrailing practices;
e.g., frequently redressing to adapt to changing thermalscapes as trains cut through mountains,
flatlands and urban landscapes, each with specific temperatures; sticking one’s head out open
windows, g(r)asping for fresh air and cooler temperatures, and preparing oneself for extended travel
with cold drinks, are all some of the embodied practices revolving around the subtle effects of
particular thermalscapes. As a result the embodied knowledge informed by the sensuous apprehension
of places generates a range of both unreflexive, conscious and instrumental touristscapes (Edensor &
Falconer, 2011).
Imagine the cold wind gusts circulating in compartments as trains cut through deep tunnels; imagine the
variation of temperatures often leading to subtle coughs♫. Or try to envision going to cramp, warm and
foul-smelling toilets to freshen up, and soak yourself with cold water, following hours of perspiring train
travel. Imagine unflushed toilets; imagine the distinct smell of urine building up as the toilet has been heated
up during a whole day. Now picture yourself standing in front of the door, negotiating the extent to which
your toilet desire in fact reasons you to go in there. Imagine taking a deep breath, and with a slightly
disgruntled face, entering the room and locking the door behind you.
17
Impressionistic tale, July, 2013
Picture 4 Material traces of thermalscapes.
A wide range of materialities thus moderate the experience of temperatures during interrail.
These include for instance access to/and type of windows available, the amount of luggage dragged
along and compartment thermostats (surprisingly few seem to work when needed!). In relation to this,
Manuel exclaimed: “This compartment…where I slept last summer, between Nice and Paris. It had
7 passengers for 6 beds! And a dog! To end in beauty [sic], in the middle of the night, the air
conditioning broke down…”(Facebook, 31-05-12). Next to this, Mary-Ann (Facebook, 21-08-09)
recalls a vivid event: “You’ve had a 3 am start…you’ve had a dodgy McDonalds the night before and
been sick. You still feel nauseous at 8am when you are getting your first train at 6 that day to get from
Nice to Barcelona. All the compartments are full besides one in which resides one woman who has
the strongest stench of garlic, literally radiating from! During the journey, just to add a little salt to
the wound, she gets up to not only shut the compartment door, but turn the air con off!!”
Enrolled into a range of sensations, these remarks all touch upon the centrality of thermalscapes,
more specifically how air-conditioning systems and thermostats are material infrastructures through
which temperatures can be negotiated or forced upon passengers. Hence, when air-conditioning
systems breakdown, or when temperature is automatically imposed upon people, it reminds that space
18
is transduced through electronic networks, design codes, hardware and operational management
systems (Adey, 2006), which order and reorder the sensory contexts of rail travelers, interrailers
included.
The influence of temperatures and tiresome travel also relate to olfactory sensations: “Sorry to
be disgusting but; smelly feet” (Facebook, 21-09-09). Yet, the relational composition of sweating
travellers need not necessarily imply negative consequences, and as Chloe sensually recalls: “Slept
like a log curled up in a ball with sweaty Italian lads from Salzburg to Venice. Good times!!”
(Facebook, 26-08-12). These accounts point towards perceptions of both ‘disgusting and enchanting’
experiences that appear to be partly generated through particular thermalscapes. As the examples
have illustrated, the olfactory sense is a powerful register through which meanings, memories and
sensations are produced. Building on Dann and Jacobsen (2003) who describe the crafting of places
through smells, we intertwine the influential role of temperatures, to acknowledge the diverse,
manipulating and influencing role of thermalscapes.
Multisensory phenomenology: opportunities and constraints
Having envisioned what interrailing entails, one might be able to picture through which
sensuous geographies interrailers (make) sense (of) their rail experiences. In doing so we illustrate
how tourism mobilities can be re-animated through multisensory phenomenologies that strive: “…to
find inspiration in the arts, in the poetics of embodied living…in taking dedicated risks, in exercising
passion, and in finding ways to re configure thinking, sensing, and presenting” (Vannini, 2015, p.14).
Arguably, the sensory characteristics of places might change according to a whole range of
internalities and externalities, yet the railway routes, the specificities of trains, compartments, as well
as the range of moorings and spatial fixities such as platforms, stations and operational systems leave
enduring contexts that produce places (Vannini & Taggart, 2013). Our study has shown how interrail
unfolds in the everyday of rail travel, and has exemplified how the multisensory cannot be reduced
to ‘the mobile’, but traverse incidences of movement and rest, moorings and mobility. Inspired by the
non-representational, multisensory phenomenology thus questions the symbolic claims that position
rail space outside that of the ‘normal’ routines and practices of everyday life (Kirby, 1997), as well
as wider discourses on tourism consumption as extraordinary, liminal, moments of experiencing
(Farber & Hall, 2007; Mossberg, 2008). Instead mobile spatialities have been woven into the
everyday, as are notions of the monotonous, mundane or ‘banal’ (Binnie, Edensor, Holloway,
Millington, & Young, 2007). From such a perspective, ordinary actions and apparent insignificant
19
subtleties, whilst providing little in terms of essentialist or symbolic meaning, still make a crucial
difference to everyday experiences.
These contexts have been approached by integrating ethnographic reporting styles that reflect
recent developments within non-representational work (Bissell, 2010; Vannini & Taggart, 2013),
which value the pre-cognitive as something more than an addendum to the cognitive.
Methodologically, phenomenological research with a non-representational focus requires ‘pushing’
or merging methods in experimental ways to document the embodied practices and performances of
travellers’ experiences (Latham, 2003; Simpson, 2011). This questions the occularcentric domination
of the visual in tourism studies (Crang, 1997). Yet, our attempt is not a resistance to the visual
dominance in tourism research, but rather calls for further research to develop ways to enliven the
immanent multisensory nature of the visual (Edensor & Falconer, 2011; Scarles, 2010). For this, there
remains a continuing paradox in attempts to theorise and to write about the body as existing outside
our linguistic structures as this simultaneously, and inevitably, inscribes the body into those very
same linguistic structures (Shusterman, 1997). Nonetheless, this paper has sought to narrow the divide
between semantics and somatics, between words and bodies, through its audio-visual and
impressionistic rendition. We recognise that critics may find phenomenology informed by nonrepresentational concerns: “obscure, opaque and unreachable in the current climate of scientisation,
relevance and impact” (Xiao et al., 2013, p. 376). Yet for this same reason we have pursued an
alternative mode of research concerned with “…the visceral experiences, atmospheres, vibes,
emotions, and affective capacities that are currently mostly rendered inaccessible by the underlying
philosophy of our current methodologies…” (ibid, p. 376). By adopting a reflexive style driven by a
fusion of audio-visual impressionistic tales and netnography, readers have been urged to experience
the three elaborated sensescapes as intimately linked. Through immersion readers were encouraged
to carefully listen to the sounds, study the non-representational movements of the hand-held
recordings, as well as imagine the olfactory remarks, the atmospheres and affects that the examples
embrace.
Finally, in an effort to extend our understanding of such sensuous geographies, we furthermore
developed Edensor’s (2007b) observations in relation to the importance of temperatures. With this
paper we suggest that thermalscapes are central sensuous geographies to further inform tourism
studies. As has become clear through the analysis, temperatures configure and reconfigure
experiences in ways that go beyond individual experience. Thermalscapes segregate, conjoin and
influence the behaviour and affective experiences of travellers. Following McCormack (2008, p. 415)
20
there is thus an ‘animate agency’ in temperatures, which means that the properties of the medium
through which livings beings move are all-important. Acknowledging this allows tourism research to
rethink the ‘materialities’ through which the sensing of mobilities is enacted.
Conclusion
This paper has illustrated how interrailing, as with all other tourism and everyday experiences,
is a multisensory experience. Through three interlaced sensescapes—rhythmscapes, soundscapes and
thermalscapes – the analysis hasdiscussed how interrail experiences are set in the everyday ‘hum’ of
rail travel, complexly generated on the basis of mobilities and immobilities, and embodied through
materially dispersed and technologically mediated rhythms, sonic spaces and thermal atmospheres.
The paper has demonstrated how phenomenology in tourism can be informed by sensuous
concerns (Edensor & Falconer, 2011) and non-representational approaches (Xiao et al., 2013). Whilst
the paper extends recent contributions on the sensory in tourism (Edensor, 2007b; Scarles, 2010), its
main contribution is the original application of multisensory phenomenology in the context of
interrailing. The paper has been crafted with the hope that other scholars will extend this work, and
benefit from the widening opportunities of digital publishing (integrating hyperlinks, audio, videos
and so on) in academic journals, which are still relying primarily on textual representations.
Impressionistic tales and audio-visual examples have been used to animate representations
multisensuously in the spirit of recent non-representational theorists (Latham & McCormack, 2009;
Vannini, 2015 ). Netnographic extracts were used to nuance the impressionistic tales, and to provide
an emerging example of how the novel integration of methods can contribute to insights on tourism
mobilities and beyond.
Finally, in introducing the concept of thermalscapes, our aim has been to encourage future
studies to further investigate experiences as emplaced in, and experienced by temperatures. Further
analysis of tourism thermalscapes will allow for insightful theorisations on the agentic role of varying,
circulating and intervening temperatures in a variety of settings. Indeed temperatures act as a factor
influencing the location of tourism, as a resource supporting a wide range of activities, and as an
attraction in its own right (Martin & Belén, 2005). Yet while the embodiment of temperatures is
perhaps one of the most enduring and interceptive sensuous dimensions in tourism, its study oddly
remains little more than a footnote in tourism research.
21
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