Walking with technology: understanding mobility-technology assemblages

ABSTRACT

It is difficult to deny that technology – be it listening to music through headphones, engaging with smartphone apps or conversing through hands-free headsets – has become a ubiquitous part of everyday walking practices, influencing daily activities and shaping how these are operationalised. While digital technologies cannot replace conventional interactions with landscapes (e.g. the weather, clothing, street furniture, etc.), the intersections of people, places and technologies can converge in exciting and surprising ways to produce new forms of interrelating with(in) spaces. In this paper, I focus on the digital walking tour as a novel instrument through which to examine how mobility-technology assemblage assists with understanding how engagements with environments might produce various, contrasting assemblages of mobilities, bodies, affects, emotions and placemaking. I argue that participating within hybridised physical/digital spaces affects and is affected by different mobility practices. Through this paper, I propose that mobility-technology assemblage thinking provides new interventions into the ways in which people interact with technology, with each other and with(in) everyday spaces. Hence, while the person–technology interface may be considered a largely individual experience, I posit that the amalgamation of people, places and technologies can, in fact, greatly influence how pedestrian experiences are assembled, transmitted, received and interpreted.

KEYWORDS:

• Assemblage
• geography
• mobility
• walking
• smartphone technology

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my co-investigators – Dr Nichola Harmer and Dr Rebecca Vickerstaff and to Dr David Tyfield and the three anonymous reviewers for their encouraging feedback. A version of this paper was given at the ‘Beyond the Pedestrian’ conference, convened by Dr Morag Rose, at the University of Liverpool in 2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. While the information sheets stated that smartphone ownership was not compulsory (those without could easily work with other group members), all involved owned their own smartphones and were able to download the app.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a University of Plymouth ‘Pedagogic Research and Teaching Innovation’ Grant – Award Number: GH102007-121.