Emotional Encounters and Young Feminine Choreographies in the Helsinki Metro

in Girlhood Studies
Author:
Heta Mulari Finnish Youth Research Society

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Abstract

In this article I discuss girls’ and non-binary young people's experiences of unwelcome intergenerational encounters in the Helsinki metro underground transport network. I foreground a theoretical conception of the metro as an urban space in which the material is deeply intertwined with the political and as a space with its own racialized, gendered, and age-based hierarchies. Calling on the work of Sara Ahmed, I investigate how girls and non-binary young people make meaning of unwanted emotional encounters in the metro space and how they use and adopt certain material and digital strategies that Helena Saarikoski calls young feminine choreographies, to cope in these situations. This article is based on interviews with girls and non-binary young people who were then between 16 and 17 years of age.

Contributor Notes

Heta Mulari (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7861-5038) is a post-doctoral researcher at the Finnish Youth Research Society in Helsinki, where she specializes in urban studies, media studies and girlhood studies. At the University of Helsinki she has taught Girlhood Studies and Nordic Film Studies. She is also a board member of FlickForsk! The Nordic Network for Girlhood Studies and Tyttötutkimusverkosto, the Finnish Network for Girlhood Studies.

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