DISADVANTAGES / LIMITATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS AND FURTHER STUDY - most participants opted not to engage in mobile

methods demonstrated a poor choice of method - mad and disabled participants may trouble able-bodied research practices, the normative spaces, and paces of research

- mad and disabled participants identified ableist and sanist socio-spatial temporalities as creating access barriers limiting their participation

- go-along interviews may (re)expose participants to oppression relating to barriers, physical and attitudinal, limiting their access

- traditional interview methods may be more familiar, and thus, people may favor such methods.

In my research, face-to-face sit-down interviews were the standard predominant interview style - practically, mobile interviews are unpredictable and outdoor weather conditions mediate researcher-participants' desire and ability to do the interview

Recommendations:

- it is important to consider participants' and researchers' own material embodiments

- go-along interviews may result in unforeseen conditions, circumstances, and social interactions that require way-finding and navigational decisions to be made as to where to go next, requiring trust,

interdependency, and joint decision making on the part of researchers and participants

- there is a need to unpack these liminal spaces in-between Self-Other and our relationships in space - mobile qualitative inquiry requires unpacking socio-spatial relationships to understand not only how people are positioned but also how societal spaces may

position us,

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AUTHOR / PAPER ADVANTAGES

(Kusenbach, 2018) Go-Alongs

- ability to build bridges with participants who may not be easy to engage or recruit in more traditional ways

- fosters a special connection based on sharing space, time and experience – that assists researchers in forging positive and productive relationships with participants

APPLICATION TOOLS

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TECHNOLOGY - more participatory and democratic in comparison with more formal qualitative methods because they allow study subjects to control some parameters

- engages participants in places in which they already operate and encourage reflection,

- can be incorporated productively in applied research designs where program evaluation and institutional improvements are pursued.

- allows access to otherwise unnoticed or distorted aspects of social life - can facilitate deep insights into participants' environmental perceptions and life histories, as well as illuminate community culture and social structures - generates scholarly knowledge that is 'truer to life', with the unique potential in helping 'excavate levels of meaning unaware of'

- allows interviewers time to formulate better questions and follow-ups, and giving ethnographers access to situated perceptions and meanings that simply cannot be observed

- produce more place-specific data, 'a narrative that unfolds through place, organizing experiences spatially rather than temporally'

- can assist researchers who investigate specific questions on the meaning and significance of places and certain social practices

This chapter is an adaptation of an earlier overview of mobile methods written for and offer thoughts on future directions.

DISADVANTAGES / LIMITATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS AND FURTHER STUDY

30 - not useful for a study of meditation

- cannot be examined well, or at all, via go-alongs, such as those that do not involve individual embodied activities that can be followed or

observed, as for instance cognitive, historical, or collective processes

- study participants' engagement with their environments must be accessible and leave some room for reflection and conversation as some mobile activities, may be too engaging, too

dangerous, or too secretive to be studied via the go-along method

- important practical circumstances that can limit research subjects, researchers, or both in their ability to engage in go-along research may include lighting conditions, weather conditions such as temperature or wind, physical and legal access, and bodily capabilities

- not all people are able and willing to talk while moving or move while talking, or willing to take researchers on trails or tours

- requires understanding and consent from

participants as well as a commitment by researchers to avoid or minimize harm

- the social conditions for a successful use of go-alongs do not differ much from the ones for either observations or interviews,

Recommendations:

- while some practical barriers to using go-alongs can be overcome because they are variable and seasonal, others are permanent and require creativity by researchers in developing alternative approaches, potentially including virtual or simulated go-alongs.

- Ferguson (2016) appropriately cautions that the heightened emotionality and intimacy of go-along encounters also increases the ethical responsibilities of researchers

- it would be a welcome and significant contribution to strengthen the go-along’s potential for making micro-macro links without abandoning its grounding in situated meanings

- make go-alongs more social by focusing on larger social units, such as neighborhoods

- much more can be done to expand the collective aspects and insights of go-along research

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AUTHOR / PAPER ADVANTAGES

(Flick et al., 2019) Walking and Talking

Integration: Triangulation of Data from Interviews and Go-Alongs for Exploring Immigrant

- go-alongs can also be seen as a form of within-methods triangulation, combining mobile methods, observation, conversations with, descriptions, and explanations by the participant

- the use of mobile methods enabled the researchers to get more deeply in touch with the current reality of our interviewees' lives

32 Welfare Recipients' Sense(s)

of Belonging

- going along with the participants raised lots of topics

and created stimuli for narratives and descriptions that—as we could see when analyzing data in more depth later on— would not have emerged in the

interviews alone, no matter how sensitive we tried to be during the interviews - going along as a shared activity creates a different situation that gives more space to the participants for spontaneous reflection and talk

APPLICATION TOOLS TECHNOLOGY - data collected in episodic interviews, when needed, were carried out in a multilingual way

- 40 participants (20 cases each with a Turkish and FSU immigration)

- 10 go-alongs, 5 hours on average

- different spatial contexts for a broad variety of opportunities for

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DISADVANTAGES / LIMITATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS AND FURTHER STUDY