Mobile Methodologies and
Methodologies of Mobility: engaging with practices in place and
out-of-place
The desire to engage with corporeal movements, embodied
performances and mundane practices has led geographers to broaden the range and
reach of the standard methodological tools, through innovation, experimentation
and re-conceptualisation. Of particular concern within social and cultural
geography has been the attempts to study the experiential, corporeal and sensual, alongside the observable and
representable. This paper will outline my approaches for engaging with the embodied
practices of contemporary pilgrimages. Utilising the opportunities offered by
the recent ‘mobilities turn’ within the discipline and the emergence of
nonrepresentational geographies, I have adopted a ‘mobility ethnography’, as a methodology
that aims to access and capture a holistic appreciation of specific practices.
This approach allows for the investigation of performances as they are
occurring in place, while also treating of the context and the motivations of
those involved. This mobility
ethnography consists of a collection of complementary methods: participant
observation, photography, audio-visual recording, auto-ethnography, interviews,
and visual and documentary research.