Understanding daily mobility strategies through ethnographic, time use, and social network lenses

Abstract

The development of sustainable transport and mobility systems for the future will not only need more efficient, less contaminating, and technologically enhanced systems, information, and infrastructures; it will also require a transition to new forms of living and modification of contemporary forms of mobility and immobility. This challenge will undoubtedly require an understanding of past and present modes of living in order to disentangle the complexity of contemporary life and pinpoint the implications of new forms of sustainable mobility. Given that new systems, information, materialities, and infrastructures affect people differently, it is vital that preparations be made for the potentially uneven implications of introducing new mobility assemblages, particularly for countries in the global South where sustainability in transport and mobility systems are crucial to overcoming persistent inequalities. An important step in this direction is to understand the current mobility strategies that people employ on a daily basis. This paper addresses these mobility strategies through the lenses of ethnography, time use, and social networks. It does so by identifying new dimensions revealed by the different methods which together present the true diversity of mobility strategies. A case study based on research carried out in Concepcion, Chile, illustrates how these tools are combined to reveal the complex decision-making involved in contemporary everyday life. The paper recognizes limitations in terms of data gathering tools, timings, epistemologies, languages, and forms of representation of our work, and challenging proposals for future research are put forward.