Introduction

This chapter explains the research question, the rationale, the methodology, and the organization of the book. Through everyday metrobus encounters and the socio-spatial relation it constitutes with regulars, this book analyzes the concept of togetherness in Istanbul. Following Lefebvrian social space, I undertake Istanbul as the practical testing ground in understanding the metropolitan spatial constitution and subjectification in togetherness. Istanbul’s famous bus rapid transit, the metrobus, is an instrumental and conceptual representation of metropolitan mobility; however, it is also an essential space of plural, diverse, and unexpected encounters in 16-million Istanbul. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 regular metrobus passengers, I scrutinize the ordinary, the actual and concrete, in metropolitan everydayness through its regulated mobile practices to reveal the perception and practice of being together with diverse and plural others. I argue that the regular and obligated use of the metrobus in metropolitan-appropriated everydayness deviates inhabitants from the essence of socio-spatial togetherness by constituting an abstracted practice entangled with spatial-temporal consumption in transit subjectification.