In examining the interior of Morelia’s ubiquitous “combi” minibuses, the authors conduct a dramaturgical investigation into how micro‑interpersonal codes and spatial proximity inform urban sociality. These vehicles, though unremarkable in form, serve as transient theatres of normative behaviour, where rituals of entry, seating, bodily orientation, and conversational silence reflect broader social scripts. Drawing on Goffman’s notion of “courteous inattention,” passengers negotiate shared space with an unspoken choreography of avoidance and fleeting recognition, thus producing an ephemeral yet palpable social milieu. The study underscores how such encounters, though brief and anonymous, activate deep-seated norms of urban courtesy and negotiation—norms that prefigure public trust and collective self‑restraint. Even in settings characterized by crowding, discomfort, and precarity, the combi manifests a microcosm of urban ethics in motion, reinforcing that public transit is less a transport mechanism and more an ethical arena for embodied copresence, where subjectivity is enacted communally despite physical constraints.
