Experiencing the Run: ‘Go-Along’ and ‘Video-
Ethnography’ Simon Cook | Plymouth University
RGS-IBG Postgraduate Mid-Term Conference 2013
Recent resurgence on writings on mobility and movement (Merriman, 2012)
Previously largely ignored or trivialised terms (Sheller and Urry, 2006)
Movement is meaningful and power-laden (Cresswell, 2001)
Affects relationships with places, spaces, people, time and others (Fincham et al, 2010)
Mobile Turn
The recent interest is movement and mobile practices has challenged existing research methods and ask new questions of research techniques
Traditional social science methods have dealt poorly with the fleeting, complex, sensory, emotional and kinaesthetic (Law and Urry, 2004)
Recent upsurge and innovation in new methods tailored to research mobile phenomena, subjects and practices (Büscher et al, 2010)
Mobile Methods
Running has eluded sustained study in the social sciences (Bale, 2004)
Road-running involves the sharing and recycling of non-specialised spaces
No methodological precedent
Running and Mobilities
Essentially a hybrid of an interview on the move and participant observation
Deep engagement with participants’ worldviews
In order to know what it feels to be a runner, one is obliged to go the extra mile (Vettenniemia, 2012)
Method
The Go Along
Video Ethnography
Recent upsurge in geographical research using videographic methods (Simpson, 2011)
Pseudo-mobile
Enables the moment to be captured, retained, analysed and scrutinised
Method
The camera’s eye Does not lie
But it cannot showThe life within
The life of a runnerOf your or mine
Extract from The Runner - W.H.
Auden
Injury
Tiredness
Multi-tasking
Dictaphone
Go Along – Practical Difficulties
Fixed camera angle
Noises
Battery life
Positioning the camera
Video-Ethnography Practical Difficulties
Not a normal run
Great rapport
Entering the participants running world
Responding to events and creating context
Communicate meanings, understandings and feelings
Unable to capture the moment
Go Along – Experiencing the Run
Capture and relive the moment of a normal run
Reveal the often unseen or unnoticed
Understand how bodies interact and negotiate spaces, environments and others
Predominance of sight
Emotions, experiences and sensory aspects lost
Video Ethnography – Experiencing the Run
Together the techniques could form a formidable and holistic methodology
Go- Along: understanding meanings, perspectives and feelings
Video-Ethnography: understanding the actions, details and how the run is accomplished
Negotiating Pedestrians
Multi-Mobile-Methods
