Shared journeys, linked lives: a relational-biographical approach to mobility practices

Abstract

This paper innovatively extends existing practice-theoretical mobility research by examining biographical aspects of people’s everyday mobility that capture and reflect their social relations. Drawing on nine qualitative interviews with couples who live in/near Vienna without a private car, the paper demonstrates the promising potential of retrospective forms of social research for uncovering the dynamics of mobility practices across the life course. It conceptualises individuals as inherently social and mutually interconnected mobility practitioners whose complex and dynamic interactions with others make up more or less mobile households and families. The paper thus treats social relations as a major connector between the constitutive social and material elements of (mobility) practices, making an explicitly relational contribution to current practice-theoretical debates in mobility research.

Keywords:

• Mobility
• biography
• practices
• social relations
• family
• household

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank our research participants for their time and cooperation. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support received through the LMUexcellent and Erasmus+ funding programmes which made this publication possible. Finally, we are grateful to the editor and two anonymous reviewers whose helpful comments helped us improve an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. In this paper we use the term ‘relationality’ to describe different types of socio-material relations. This clearly differs from its use as a broader concept in social theory.

2. This contrasts with studies that view disruptions of routine practices as ‘normal’ part of everyday life (e.g. Trentmann 2009).

3. Although virtual travel and ‘Fernliebe’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2011) are increasingly common features of intimate relationships in a cosmopolitan world, proximity and corporeal co-presence are still considered to be central to building trust.