June 25, 2021

Paulo Peixoto

To what extent are the so-called night runners supporting emerging sociabilities that have consequences on the ways of using and representing the city? Conceiving night runners as new and deviant individual types of the urban scene, in the light of Robert Park's theory, this PhD Thesis sees the universe of the night urban fabric as a "moral region". It is postulated that this "moral region" allows individuals from different social backgrounds to meet, driven by the search for fun framed by impulses that challenge the constraints of urban life taking the form of "deviant leisure". The night runners challenge, through the appropriation of urban time and space as well as through the symbolic expressions they develop, the permissive character of cities. This divergent urban universe is simultaneously producer of disruptive moral codes and intimacies. The symbolism of the night, combined with a certain transgressive character, allows us to claim autonomy from the constraints of day-to-day working life. Beyond this transgression, these are new social actors who are emerging on the urban scene, claiming the urban public space as their own, i.e. their "right to the city" in the light of Henri Lefebvre's theory. They thus question the use of urban space, usually associated with pedestrians, cars, motorbikes and bicycles, for example. To what extent, during the night period, can we witness the emergence of new tensions and conflicts over the use of an urban space that is limited, and that never has a social actor taking it over permanently? What new uses and representations of urban space are emerging through the emergence of groups of people who decide to run at night? Keeping these questions in mind, this PhD Thesis, using emerging methodologies in the field of sociology, selects a case study to bring answers to these questions. This case study is the "Night Runners Coimbra" group - a running group located in the city of Coimbra, Portugal - studying how the practice of night running has been showing negotiations, but also tensions with other users of urban space, at the same time bringing out new uses and representations about the urban public space used for this practice.

Keywords: "night nunners"; Right to the City; Urban Mobility; Urban Nightlife; Urban Practices