Walking against speed: slow time, temporal friction, and rhythmic recalibration in mobility systems

Contemporary mobility systems are increasingly structured by speed, immediacy, and continuous progression. This study examines how slow embodied movement was interpreted and experienced by virtual audiences through a qualitative netnographic analysis of the 108-day Walk for Peace, a 2,300-mile silent journey across the United States. Drawing on social acceleration theory, temporal politics, and rhythmanalysis, the study conceptualises time as tempo rather than duration. The findings show that slow movement generated temporal friction within infrastructures and digital platforms organised around velocity and real-time responsiveness. Moments of disruption, including accidents, weather delays, and communicative silence, exposed dominant temporal norms and prompted interpretive negotiation among observers. Exposure to alternative rhythms enabled rhythmic recalibration, characterised by increased tolerance of delay, heightened temporal awareness, and a shift from linear progression toward continuity. The study proposes a conceptual framework in which slow time produces temporal friction that, through ongoing cycles of negotiation and recalibration, contributes to temporal reorientation. By foregrounding tempo as an analytical dimension of mobility, the paper advances a processual understanding of transformation as an adjustment in the perception and valuation of time. The findings contribute to mobilities scholarship by demonstrating how alternative rhythms can reveal and subtly reconfigure acceleration within contemporary movement systems.