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Methods as Moving Ground: Reflections on the ‘Doings’ of Mobile Methodologies

Author

Listed:
  • Ingrid Boas

    (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

  • Joris Schapendonk

    (Geography, Planning, Environment Department, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, The Netherlands)

  • Suzy Blondin

    (Institute of Geography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

  • Annemiek Pas

    (Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden)

Abstract

As mobilities studies became a well-respected field in social science, discussions on mobile research designs followed. Usually, these discussions are part of empirical papers and reveal specific methodological choices of individual researchers, or groups of researchers sharing the same objectives and questions. This article starts with a different approach. It is based on continuous discussions between four researchers who developed their own version of mobility-driven projects, starting from different disciplinary backgrounds and using different research techniques. By sharing and contrasting personal fieldwork experiences, we reflect on the doings of mobile methodologies. We engage with the mistakes, dilemmas, and (dis)comforts that emerge from our own mobile research practices, and discuss what this implies for relations of power between the researcher and the research participants, and to what extent mobile research can represent the mobility that we seek to study. Specifically, the article addresses three questions: 1) To what extent do we produce different knowledge with our mobile methodologies? 2) How do our smooth writings about methodology relate to the ‘messy’ realities in the field? 3) How do our practices articulate and transcend difference between researchers and research participants?

Suggested Citation

  • Ingrid Boas & Joris Schapendonk & Suzy Blondin & Annemiek Pas, 2020. "Methods as Moving Ground: Reflections on the ‘Doings’ of Mobile Methodologies," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 163-146.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:8:y:2020:i:4:p:163-146
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Annika Lems, 2020. "Phenomenology of Exclusion: Capturing the Everyday Thresholds of Belonging," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 116-125.
    2. Kolar Aparna & Joris Schapendonk & Cesar Merlín-Escorza, 2020. "Method as Border: Tuning in to the Cacophony of Academic Backstages of Migration, Mobility and Border Studies," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 110-115.
    3. Annemiek Pas, 2018. "Governing Grazing and Mobility in the Samburu Lowlands, Kenya," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Peter Merriman, 2014. "Rethinking Mobile Methods," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 167-187, May.
    5. Matthew Cook & Tim Edensor, 2017. "Cycling through Dark Space: Apprehending Landscape Otherwise," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Suzy Blondin, 2020. "Understanding involuntary immobility in the Bartang Valley of Tajikistan through the prism of motility," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 543-558, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kolar Aparna & Joris Schapendonk & Cesar Merlín-Escorza, 2020. "Method as Border: Tuning in to the Cacophony of Academic Backstages of Migration, Mobility and Border Studies," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 110-115.

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