Is Children's Independent Mobility Really Independent? A Study of Children's Mobility Combining Ethnography and GPS/Mobile Phone Technologies
This article proposes the need for a critical examination of the notion of children's 'independent mobility', a concept rather uncritically accepted by social science and human geography research. It examines the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of the concept by drawing on data from a study of children's mobility in a suburban area of Copenhagen and two villages in Jutland, Denmark. The study combined ethnography with GPS-tracking and a rolling mobile phone survey. This produced a rich data set that allows the authors to show that children's mobility has to be recognized as primarily social, and that companionship pervades every aspect of the activity. The findings suggest that researchers need to attend to the diversity of children's mobility patterns, the local geographical contexts of children's movements and the different relations of interdependency that children's mobility involves.
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Availability:
- Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/17450101
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Supplemental Notes:
- Abstract reprinted with permission from Taylor & Francis
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Authors:
- Mikkelsen, Miguel Romero
- Christensen, Pia
- Publication Date: 2009
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Print
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: pp 37-58
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Serial:
- Mobilities
- Volume: 4
- Issue Number: 1
- Publisher: Routledge
- ISSN: 1745-0101
- EISSN: 1745-011X
- Serial URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmob20
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Children; Geography; Global Positioning System; Mobile telephones; Mobility; Social factors
- Uncontrolled Terms: Ethnography; Friends; Independent action; Interdependence
- Geographic Terms: Copenhagen (Denmark); Jutland (Denmark)
- Subject Areas: Highways; Society;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01126365
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Apr 13 2009 2:59PM