As reviewed in the previous chapter, the epistemological approach to knowledge rejects the idea of uncovering universal laws and seeking Truths. Due to its processual and experiential approach to the world and research, pragmatism regards everlasting knowledge claims as impossible. Likewise, hermeneutic thought considers the process of interpretation and understanding to be positioned and contextual. Hence in this study the aim of constructing a research design is to create a platform for qualitative inquiry with the ability to produce local and situated knowledge with its point of departure in the experiences of the 11 families and their everyday mobility. As Brinkmann notes, recalling C. Wright Mills, building a research design cannot be reduced to mechanically following a prescribed set of procedures or methods:
Be a good craftsman: Avoid any rigid set of procedures. Above all, seek to develop and use the sociological imagination. Avoid fetishism of method and technique. Urge the rehabilitation of the unpretentious intellectual craftsman, and try to become such a craftsman yourself. Let every man be his own methodologist; let every man be his own theorist; let theory and method again become part of the practice of a craft.
(2012: 49)
Following this instrumental approach, this thesis takes its point of departure not in the methods but rather in the research ambition, the goal or objective of the study, and the empirical material, and from this the adequate and relevant methods or tools for inquiry are chosen. Hence the methods applied in the process of inquiry are chosen for their ability to enhance the production of knowledge aligned with the research ambition and scope of the study as formulated in the research questions and thereby, in pragmatist terms, facilitate the transformation of the study from an indeterminate situation into a determinate one.
Hence, in this thesis, developing a sound research design relies on picking “the right tools for the job” (Patton 2002) and thereby assembling methods for data production and analysis in a combination that enriches our understanding of mundane mobility as a crucial aspect of coping with the practical, social and emotional dimensions of the family’s everyday life. Thus the ambition of the research design is to facilitate a qualitative inquiry process capable of unpacking a small and demarcated section of the complexity in the family’s everyday mobility, which is, (as will be theoretically argued for in chapter 4), more than instrumental movement from A to B, and elucidating family members’ own meanings, emotions and experiences in their everyday mobility.
The research design and the methods incorporated in the study are therefore especially attuned to the social, material, embodied and affective dimensions of everyday mobility and the relational context of the family in which mobility is made and performed.
DISCUSSION OF MOBILE METHODS
A major source of inspiration for the research design in this study is the heightened interest in and discussions of methods within the mobilities turn under the umbrella term “mobile methods” (see D'Andrea, Ciolfi and Gray (2011), Büscher, Urry and Witchger (2010), Fincham, McGuinness and Murrey (2010), Urry (2007), Watts and Urry (2008), Sheller and Urry (2006), Mobilities (2011), Sheller (2014) for extensive reviews). Researchers in studies of mobilities are tinkering and experimenting with mobile methods attuned to the exploration and investigation of the multi-faceted aspects of mobility. While the relevance, novelty and capabilities of these new mobile methods are debatable, their newness should, according to D'Andrea, Ciolfi and Gray, rather be understood in relation to the “concern with the singularity of mobility as a sui generis node of phenomena requiring particular methodological and conceptual work” (2011: 155).
As also briefly touched upon in the introduction chapter (and will be much further elaborated in sections 4-8 and 4-9), the mobilities turn has enabled an analytical gaze that elucidates aspects of movement, potential movement and blocked movement as well as social, kinaesthetic, embodied and affective dimensions of mobility, amongst others (Urry 2007, Adey 2010, Sheller 2011). Corroborating this, Büscher, Urry and Witchger argue that:
[T]he mobilities turn folds analysis into the empirical in ways that open up different ways of understanding the relationship between theory, observation and engagement. It engenders new kinds of researchable entities, a new or rediscovered realm of the empirical and new avenues for critique.
(2010: 2)
This shift in focus has opened a new arena of study that has driven mobilities researchers to find new ways of investigating and representing their objects of study. The existing methods of transport studies6 (and to some extent the conventional methods toolkit of social science) have to some degree proved inadequate to accessing this new realm of mobilities studies (Laurier 2010). This situation calls for new methods, or at least for modification and creative combinations of existing methods, specifically configured and attuned to match the analytical focus of mobilities studies (Sheller and Urry 2006).
Larsen, Urry and Axhausen (2005: 6-8) consider mobile methods to encompass two types of methods, which can be described as
• Stationary methods, such as interviewing, mapping and observing, in which the researcher, from a stationary position, captures the mobile.
6 In this thesis, the term "transport studies" is used as an umbrella term comprising several disciplines including transport geography, transport planning and traffic planning.
• Mobile methods, such as multi-sited studies, which follow along and move with the researcher as he or she moves along with the people, images, or objects that are moving and being studied.
To address not only the instrumental aspects of everyday family mobility but also the less visible social and emotional dimensions, this study is particularly interested in the opposition to off the shelf understandings of methods and the call for social scientists to creatively “re-jig, re-figure and re-calibrate their means of recording and describing the world” (Laurier 2010: xiv). On the other hand, as Peter Merriman rightly states, “The push to promote innovative ‘mobile methods’ is in danger of encouraging researchers to abandon methods labelled ‘conventional’ – such as interviews, questionnaires, discourse analysis or archival research – rather than rethinking and reworking these methods, or expanding and diversifying their repertoire of approaches” (2013: 2).
Similarly, Shaw and Hesse critically call into question the novelty of mobile methods, reminding us that the point is not to disavow or dismiss ‘conventional’ methods, but
“what is at stake is only the tweaking of particular methods capable of harnessing the power of existing methodologies in mobile situations” (2010: 5). Hence the novelty of mobile methods lies not in the invention of new methods, but rather in mobilities scholars’ creative efforts to find “new ways of combining ideas and approaches”
(Jensen 2013: 39).
This study aims for a balanced research design, fully acknowledging the need to align and attune methods towards everyday mobility as a multi-faceted phenomenon but at the same time recognising that this goal may be best accomplished through the use of conventional methods. However, this stated ambition should not be understood as an endorsement of the idea that all aspects of everyday mobility can be fully grasped.
Indeed, no mobile method can magically capture the full complexity of everyday mobility; instead various methods are specially attuned to particular aspects of mobility, leaving other aspects in the background. In particular, there are some ephemeral aspects of mobility, such as the sensorial and affective dimensions involved in the embodied performance of mobility, that evade both capture and representation (see Spinney (2011), Merriman (2013) and Pink (2012) for a more elaborate discussion).
In this thesis, the research design takes as its point of departure the qualitative interview as the primary method in the production of empirical data. However, the interview as a stand-alone method has limited reach. Combining several methods for producing empirical data serves as a foundation enabling different perspectives from which the object of study can be elucidated, or as Spinney writes, “different methods enable us to ask different questions” (2011: 163). By combining various methods, the intention in this study is to achieve a broader and more nuanced rendering of the interrelated practical, social and emotional aspects of everyday family mobility. This is effected through a rethinking and reworking of the conventional interview method and by proposing a research design in which the qualitative interview is coupled with GPS tracking and other techniques, and with ethnographic field studies of performing everyday mobility practices as methods for empirical data production.
RENDERING THE INvISIBLE vISIBLE
As the above discussion on mobile methods hints, fleeting and less visible non-representational experiences of being mobile evade conscious registers in everyday life, and even the purposive attention of the researcher towards such sensorial and emotional mobile phenomena does not ensure full access. This might be considered one of the many mundane aspects of people’s everyday lives and performances of mobility that go unnoticed as they are gradually ingrained in habits and routines (this will be further theoretically elaborated in chapter 4). This unheededness, induced by repetition and familiarity, envelopes many of the practical, sensorial and emotional aspects of everyday performances of mobility, rendering them less visible and therefore less susceptible to examination by introspection (see in particular section 4-2). People are never consciously attuned to all facets of experiences in their everyday lives, and are often unable to verbally relay such encounters. Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren frame this phenomenon through a familiar everyday exchange:
- So what did you do today?
- Nothing, just the usual things ...
… If you ask people to narrate what they have done during the day, they might answer like this or just mention something that happened out of the ordinary.
It is rare that people start listing all the minor routines that carried them from the bed to work.
(2009: 99)
The sensorial and emotional dimensions of everyday life are easily overlooked or disregarded in hindsight, and often are not appreciated for their affective qualities (indeed they may be disparaged) but rather tend to blend unheeded into quotidian performances. Only through disruption or breakdown is reflection produced (Highmore 2010). Not only do ephemeral characteristics of the everyday such as affects, emotions, feelings, atmospheres and sensations seldom emerge in retrospective reflections, but also such things as the performance of mundane mobility practices, the practical details of decisions, what happened when and where often feel unimportant and get blurry when articulated. Likewise, people’s vast repertoires of practical and tacit knowledge and know-how, the everyday tactics and heuristics that are employed in everyday doings, are often shrouded from conscious reflection.
This invisibility and unheededness of the quotidian is one of the major methodological challenges of studying everyday life; however, as will be argued, it is not insurmountable (Brinkmann 2012: 21). In constructing a research design we should start from the fact, paraphrasing Polanyi (1966: 4), that people know more than they can tell. Russell Hitchings points to the general concern that the interview method in studies of everyday life falls short of dealing with these less visible aspects; as he writes, “Sometimes
hidden in the subtext and sometimes stated up front, there is now the suggestion that everyday practices are either so habitually done that potential respondents are probably unable to comment or matters we should just study differently in view of a contemporary reticence about representation and an eagerness to experiment” (2012:
61). However, Hitchings defends the interview method, arguing it is a valid, relevant and even effective method for gaining insight into everyday routines and practices.
People’s experiences and understandings of their own everyday social practices, including mobility, may not be regularly reflected on in everyday life, but they are not deeply buried and beyond reach. Rather, just as disruptions and breakdowns might provoke reflection in everyday life, in this study different evocation techniques, techniques chosen to evoke the less visible and unheeded aspects in everyday family mobility, are employed in combination with the qualitative interview method to render everyday experiences and understandings visible for reflection and articulation (these will be outlined further in section 3-4).
Interviewing and talking to people about their everyday lives and mobility is not the only way of accessing and gaining insight into the less visible aspects of everyday mobility. One of the key interests of the study is to gain insight into the visceral, sensorial and emotional dimensions of embodied everyday mobility performances, as it is believed these hold importance for understanding the role of mobility in the family’s everyday life. Although the interview method can provide a way of opening up the fleeting sensorial experiences of being in motion in Copenhagen, and the vast repertoire of habitual and embodied dispositions, skills and knowledge deployed in performing everyday mobility practices, the interviews are, naturally, conducted at a remove from the actual bodily performances. While the qualitative interview can be a tool for approaching and providing some insights into the less visible dimensions of everyday mobility, other methods specially attuned to this are more powerful.
Drawing inspiration from participatory and performance-oriented approaches, such as mobile methods like shadowing (Jirón 2011), follow the thing (Hui 2013) and moving along (Lee and Ingold 2006, Vannini 2012), a phenomenological ethnographic method in which the researcher is involved in observation of and participation in the mobility practices is brought into the research design to supplement the qualitative interviews. This creates opportunities to explore and gain deeper insight into the embodied performances of mobility the family members report during the interviews.
Obviously, these methods cannot provide access to the respondent’s subjective and personal meanings, experiences and sensations of moving; rather they are about the researcher using his body and sensory ability to experience what it is like to be mobile in various transport systems in Copenhagen. As Pink writes:
[T]he phenomenological ethnographer uses both body and intellect as research instruments and might understand personal experiences of cultural concepts that are otherwise untranslatable, through her or his own embodied experiences.
(2006: 43)
Hence, ethnography takes its point of departure in the inter-subjective coupling of and relationship between the “the researcher and the researched, insider and outsider, self and other, body and environment” (Watson and Till 2010: 121) in a manner not unlike the hermeneutic process of interpretation (described in section 2-3). Following these precepts, what is envisioned in this method is for the researcher to become an analytical instrument to investigate and contextualise the ephemeral aspects of everyday mobility and the tacit and practical knowledge the respondents themselves have brought up during the interviews through physical immersion into the actual performance of mobility practices. Further, Justin Spinney advocates for “attuning”
of the researcher:
I would further suggest that the researcher needs to attune themselves to the practice in question in as many registers of meaning as possible to minimise the danger of misinterpretation.… It is important to reiterate therefore that as the researcher I would also ride the same routes as participants in an attempt to bridge the gap between ‘seeing there’ and being there and to ‘soak up’ some of the feelings of riding these routes. Csordas (1999), for example, asks ‘…
whether it is sufficient to attend to the body or whether one must in addition attend with the body, now understood as a tool for research’ (p. 149).
(2011: 173)
Spinney argues that researcher participation and attuning to the practice have great potential for providing a deeper understanding of the practice and its performance. It may even be reasonable to argue that active and bodily participation is a prerequisite for even comprehending the family members’ experiences, feelings and meanings associated with performing mobility.
Based upon insights from mobile methods, the research design in this study does not choose between conventional methods and novel mobile methods (if such a distinction can be made), but instead, in a pragmatist manner, instrumentally combines (and modifies) methods as analytical tools to be used in the process of inquiry for the production of empirical data. Consequently, in the research design two interrelated mobile methods for empirical data production have been developed:
• A stationary approach to everyday family mobility:
Qualitative interviewing with family members coupled with various evocation techniques to spark the reflective capacity of family members and evoke memories of past events of mobility performances, thereby inciting them to talk about the mundane and trivial in their everyday lives. (The details of this method are outlined in section 3-4.)
• A mobile approach to everyday family mobility:
Active participation in and performance of selected family members’ everyday mobility practices. The aim is to gain first-hand embodied and in-depth
experience and understanding of performing everyday mobility in Copenhagen.
(The details of this method are outlined in section 3-5.)
Hence the methods are chosen in accordance with the ambition of the inquiry, namely for their ability to engage with the practical, social and emotional dimensions of everyday family mobility and in doing so render the invisible, the infra-ordinariness of the quotidian and the sensorial and affective dimensions of embodied mobility, (at least partially) visible. Figure 5 below illustrates the combination, sequencing and extent of the two methods deployed in the research design.
fall 2011 fall 2012 fall 2013
Sampling
GPS tracking Phase 1 (P3)
Interview round 1 Phase 2 (P2)
Interview round 2 Phase 3 (P3) Mobile field studies
Furthermore, as part of the ACTUM project, this study has had access to data gathered by other work packages and has used them to gain a contextual understanding of the 11 families interviewed. Foremost among these data sets is a quantitative questionnaire conducted through the ACTUM project with a large population of 760 households (see Thorhauge, Vuk, Kaplan (2012) for a report on this data set). In table 1, an overview of the different empirical data used as a basis for the analysis in the study is provided.
Figure 5: Audit trail
type amount producer
Interview P1 11 interviews (approx. 1.5 hour per interview) ACTUM WP2 (own) Interview P2 7 interviews (approx. 1.5 hour per interview) ACTUM WP2 (own) Mobile Field Studies P3 13 individual mobility practices (some performed
twice)
ACTUM WP2 (own) GPS tracking GPS tracking for approx. One week of all family
members in each of the 11 families ACTUM WP1 Questionnnaries data from questionnaries (see Thorhauge, Vuk
and Kaplan (2012)) ACTUM WP3
Table 1: Table of empirical data used in the study