Where dogs, ghosts and lions roam: learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school

Abstract

This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young people's lives and future life chances in sub-Saharan Africa. During the pilot phase of our research project on children, transport and mobility, the authors undertook walks home from school with teenage children1 in four different research sites: three remote rural, one peri-urban. As the children walked (usually over a distance of around 5 km) their stories of home, of school and of the environment in-between, gradually unfolded. The lived experiences narrated during these journeys offer considerable insights into the daily lives, fears and hopes of the young people concerned, and present a range of issues for further research as our study extends into its main phase.

Keywords:

• walking
• environment
• hazards
• gendered work patterns
• educational access

Acknowledgments

This study was made possible by the following people: the children who agreed to participate in this study, the schools which helped with arrangements (including gaining parental consents) and the following RAs and researchers who walked with individual children: Ghana: Samuel Agblorti, Esia Donko, Regina Obli-Odei, Mercy Otsin, Samuel Owusu, Augustine Tanle, Ekaw Afful Wellington; Malawi: Linny Kachama, Matthews Nkosi, Bernie Zakeyo; South Africa, Eastern Cape: Andisiwe Bango, Sipho Dube, Nokholo Hlezupondo, Busi Luwaca, Noma Mlomo; South Africa, Gauteng/North West region: Dumisane Buthelezi, Lucas Marole, Marinkie Molwelang, Goodhope Mponya. We are most grateful for their assistance. We have also benefited from the comments of two anonymous referees. The study is funded by ESRC/DFID (RES-167-25-0028): however, the funders can accept no responsibility for any information provided or views expressed.

Notes

We use the terms children and ‘young people’ interchangeably in this paper. When we asked young people aged ca. 12–18 years from the three countries at our Malawi inception workshop about terminology, they expressed no concern about the use of the term ‘child’ for people in their teens.

A first draft of this paper was presented at a workshop at the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, May 2007.

Details of this ESRC/DFID-funded project are available at www.dur.ac.uk/child.mobility/

We use the term ‘mobile ethnography’ in this paper as specific acknowledgment of the physical mobility of the subjects involved in making and recording the narrative, and the centrality of mobility to that narrative, as opposed to the type of multi-site ethnography which is more extensive across geographical space and specifically embodied in the world system (Marcus 1995).

The project lead researcher, Gina Porter, participated in all the walks discussed in the paper. Some of the in-country collaborators were unable to participate in their country pilot walk but are included as authors because they helped to organise the walk concerned.

Names of smaller rural settlements and all children's names have been changed in order to give anonymity to the schools and children concerned.

In Malawi, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, fear of spirits and belief in witches is widespread among children and adults. Hyenas are associated with witchcraft.

Regarding dogs as a source of fear among mobile children see also Benwell (2009) on suburban Cape Town.

In other parts of Europe, notably Scandinavia, children are more independently mobile than in UK, but even here there has been some decline (Bjorklid 2004).

Though see Katz's work in a rural village in Sudan (1986, 1991, 1993, 2004) which emphasises young boys' and pre-pubescent girls' substantial spatial range and Matthews' 1995 study within a Kenyan roadside village. Matthews' case study emphasises parental control on children's movements, and finds ‘the environmental range of Kanyakine children was much more strictly sanctioned than for comparable age groups in Britain’ (p. 288): this was possible because of the specific context, in that a school and other facilities were available within the village. We will examine variations in children's environmental experiences and impact of parental sanctions on movement in a wide range of different contexts in our larger study.

Boyle et al., using DHS surveys across 42 developing countries, note a particularly strong association between child health and maternal education (though particularly at upper levels of education) in Ghana.