Geographies on the Move: A Practical and Theoretical Approach to the Mobile Interview

Abstract

This article considers the mobile interview method's utility to geography through five strengths: the ability to (1) produce spatially grounded and place-specific data, (2) access subtler and more complex meanings of place, (3) create opportunities for flexible and collaborative conversation with participants in situ, (4) build rapport and adjust participant–researcher power dynamics, and (5) efficiently produce rich geographic data. Practical, technical, ethical, and epistemological considerations are discussed. We expand methodological exploration of disempowered individuals' experiences of home, neighborhood, and urban space. The mobile interview offers a valuable, underutilized method for geographers to better understand the coconstitutive relationship between self and place.

本文考量动态访谈方法透过五大长处对地理学提供的效用: (1) 生产植基于空间且地方特定的数据, (2) 取得更为微妙且复杂的地方意义, (3) 在原地创造与参与者进行弹性且共同合作的对话之机会, (4) 建立密切关係并调节参与者—研究者的权力动态, 以及 (5) 有效生产丰富的地理数据之能力。本文将探讨有关实务、技术、伦理和认识论的考量。我们扩展对于被剥夺权力的个人对家庭、邻里和城市空间的经验之方法论探讨。动态访谈为地理学者提供了尚未被充分利用的可贵方法, 以更佳理解自我和地方之间的共构关係。

Este artículo se refiere a la utilidad para la geografía del método de la entrevista itinerante a través de cinco fortalezas: la habilidad para (1) producir datos específicos sobre el lugar, espacialmente anclados, (2) acceder a significados de lugar más sutiles y de mayor complejidad, (3) crear oportunidades in situ para la conversación con los participantes, flexible y colaboradora, (4) construir buena relación y ajustar la dinámica del poder de participante–investigador, y (5) producir eficientemente datos geográficos de gran riqueza. Se discuten consideraciones de naturaleza práctica, técnica, ética y epistemológica. Nos extendemos en la exploración metodológica de las experiencias de hogar, vecindario y espacio urbano de individuos despojados de poder. La entrevista itinerante ofrece a los geógrafos un valioso método poco utilizado para entender mejor la relación co-constitutiva entre el yo y el lugar.

Key Words:

• lived experience
• mobile methods
• neighborhoods
• place
• qualitative

关键词:

• 生活经验, 动态方法, 邻里, 地方, 质性。

Palabras clave:

• experiencia vivida
• métodos móviles
• vecindarios
• lugar
• cualitativo

Acknowledgments

We thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments.

Note

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 1558577), Queen's University Alfred Bader Fellowship, and University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship.

Notes

1 Participant's pseudonym and age at the time of the interview rounded to the nearest five-year interval.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica M. Finlay

JESSICA M. FINLAY is an interdisciplinary doctoral fellow in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on urban and health geographies of later life.

Jay A. Bowman

JAY A. BOWMAN is a doctoral student in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: [email protected]. His doctoral research focuses on the municipal bureaucracy and informal recycling sector's coconstitution of the waste infrastructure of Amman, Jordan.