Observing gendered interdependent mobility barriers using an ethnographic and time use approach

Abstract

Combining traditional transport research tools with qualitative research methods, particularly ethnography, can contribute to our understanding of the complexity of mobility strategies, particularly their gendered differences. Ethnographic approaches can both explain and disentangle some of the results that emerge from travel and time use surveys, hence providing a more complete picture of how and why these strategies take place, and the barriers people face when moving in the city. Using research-case studies based on in the city of Concepcion, Chile, the paper describes the application of these methods, presenting results which are particularly gender sensitive, as they shed light on the difficulty of understanding mobility strategies as individually decided and conceived, and help to explain how mobility strategies are interdependent and how determinant issues of care are in terms of mobility decision making.