Loco emotion: How trains change you

For 12 weeks, we lived on trains. Not just gazing out of windows as we crossed the Tay Bridge or slid past the sooty, post-industrial bones of Wolverhampton - but talking. Listening. Probing.

This webinar recounts the interviews of more than 80 strangers whose lives, in one way or another, had taken them on a rail journey. The remit was simple and ambitious: to understand, at the deepest level, what happens to people when they travel by train. Getting on. Getting off. Being in motion. The thoughts, feelings and beliefs that surface – and the subtle psychological shifts that occur along the way. 

It’s not easy work. The ethnological techniques have been refined over decades, brought to life by a team of anthropologists, semioticians and photojournalists who know how to see past what people say to what they mean. While many rail against the shallow generalisations of AI, this study went further – seeking to know the subjects better than they know themselves. 

Attend to learn: 

• The ethnological methods used: extempore interviewing, semantic and episodic memory, emotional decision-making, response triggers, symbolism—and the holistic human 

• The photojournalistic process and how it was optimised live, moving environments 

• The emotional analysis grid that helped decode and explain lived experience 

• How to tell a rich, human story of emotion 

• The cumulative impact across three projects, with layered learning threaded and put into action 

Ni Roth has spent over 30 years working at the intersection of marketing, advertising and human experience insight. His work has been recognised at Cannes and with an Ogilvy in New York, and he has recently supported organisations including ARU, Autodesk, Waggel and Siemens. Previously, Ni held senior roles at Ipsos North America, LP&G in Arizona, and served as Director of Marketing and Communications at YMCA Europe, before founding NIGELANDTEAM. An ethnologist, semiotician and archaeologist, Ni studied at UCL and the University of London, and is a Certified Member of MRS. 

Shawnee Harkness is an ethnographer specialising in anthropological methods that uncover the complexity of human behaviour. She holds a PhD in Ethnography from the University of Southampton and an MSc in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh. As a lecturer in qualitative research and anthropology at Southampton, and co-founder of Debating Ethnography, she leads ethnographic workshops and delivers evidence-based insight for organisations worldwide. Shawnee is also Managing Editor of Drugs, Habits, and Social Policy and a member of the Research Action Group at We Are The Loop (UK).