Mobility Practices Research Articles

Making and breaking links: the transformative potential of shared mobility from a practice theories perspective

Shared mobility has the potential to contribute to the transition to a more sustainable mobility system. However, the environmental impacts and the extent of proliferation of the various shared mobility practices differ considerably. It is problematic that the most widespread practice—free-floating carsharing—shows the least environmental potential. Thus, the question arises as to why some shared mobility practices proliferate more readily than others. This paper studies this question from a practice theoretical perspective, focusing on how practices link or do not link with one another. It analyses how various shared mobility practices, as well as the practice of private car travel, connect to other practices via spatial-material and temporal links. The analysis explains why private car travel and, to a lesser degree, free-floating carsharing integrate relatively easily into everyday life, while other forms of shared mobility struggle to do so. This observation leads to the need for far-reaching interventions, both in the making of links of sustainable practices but also in the breaking of links of unsustainable practices. This paper scrutinizes this issue in an anticipatory and theory-based manner and offers suggestions on how to refine practice theoretical concepts regarding inter-practice connections.

Students’ Mobile Phone Practices for Academic Purposes: Strengthening Post-Pandemic University Digitalization

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered as a turning point that has impacted the digital transformation of higher education. However, the link between students’ mobile phone practices and university digitalization is not sufficiently or explicitly discussed. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence about university students’ mobile phone practices for academic purposes, and to contribute to the debate regarding post-pandemic university digitalization. The participants were 60 students studying in a Greek university, data were collected via an open-ended questionnaire, and descriptive content analysis was used to examine the qualitative data. Students mainly use their mobile phones for information searches (e.g., for assignments, videos, photos, graphs, simulations, online dictionaries, and scientific papers), easy and quick access to e-classes (e.g., course material/slides) and the faculty’s site, and for communication with peers (e.g., queries, sharing educational resources) and tutors. During mobile practices, students experience advantages (easy-quick searches, flexibility, familiarization with digital technology) and disadvantages (internet connectivity, unreliable information sources, distractions). Implications for students, educators, and university policy-organization (policymakers have a role in reshaping digitalization) are discussed. It is argued that mobile learning has the potential to strengthen university digitalization, thus affecting the sustainability of education in the post-pandemic era.

Reciprocal Mobilities in Colonial Encounters in Eighteenth-Century Luzon

AbstractThe article sheds new light on colonial encounters in eighteenth-century Luzon by viewing them through the lens of mobility. Historical actors—both Spaniards and indigenes—created and sustained ties with each other through reciprocal visits punctuated by feasts. Encounters were not singular events but rather pertained to a series of multiple mobilities and multisited celebrations. The very act of travelling transformed the visitors’ identities, which became ever more entangled with their hosts’. In the colonial context, encounters did not involve a simple unilateral or unidirectional penetration and conquest of the island's interior on the part of Spanish missionaries and officials. They were embedded in a combination of Spanish and indigenous practices of reciprocal mobilities.

Navigating the divided city: Place identity and the time-geography of segregation

Research on segregation has expanded beyond its traditional focus on the residential demography of cities to explore how, why and with what consequences segregation manifests within activity spaces outside the home. As part of this shift, researchers have become increasingly interested in the time geography of residents' everyday mobility practices. Building on this work, the present paper explores the role of place identity dynamics in shaping how Catholic and Protestant residents navigate everyday spaces over time in the historically divided city of Belfast. To do so, we employ a novel combination of walking interviews (n = 33), GPS tracking, GIS visualizations, and photo-elicitation. By recovering residents' lived experiences of moving through the sensuous, material, and symbolic landscapes of the city, we show how the interrelated dynamics of place belonging and alienation influence their mobility choices in ways that maintain sectarian divisions. We also show how the concept of place identity enriches the materialist notion of mobility ‘constraints’ that has characterized most time geographic work on segregation. In conclusion, we suggest that interventions to promote desegregation must transform not only relations between different communities, but also relations between community members and the activity spaces in which their everyday movements are embedded.

When the Wheelchair Is Not Enough: What Capabilities Approaches Offer Assistive Technology Practice in Rural Argentina

This article considers the lives of disabled people requiring assistive technology who live in contexts of urban poverty. Provision is often constrained by a range of contextual factors which seem outside the scope of health and rehabilitation services. We critically reflect on health, rehabilitation, and capabilities approaches. We explore both rehabilitation and capabilities approaches with posture and mobility practice in an area of urban poverty in Argentina. Contrasting rehabilitation and capabilities approaches to a composite posture and mobility case provides a range of insights. Rehabilitation approaches start with the individual as the locus for intervention. Capabilities approaches reframe interventions such as posture and mobility in terms of the freedoms they offer, and highlight the barriers or capability gaps that must be addressed to achieve outcomes. We conclude that capabilities approaches give practitioners the scope to go beyond posture and mobility processes and attend to the other factors, across the ecosystem, that prevent people from realizing their freedoms. To address capability gaps, a broader scope of practice for health practitioners may include consumer empowerment strategies; partnering with the community; and systemic advocacy with duty holders able to address systemic barriers.

Analysing mobile learning designs: A framework for transforming learning post-COVID

Mobile learning is well established in literature and practice, but under-evolved from a rigorous learning design perspective. Activity theory presents a sophisticated way of mapping and understanding learning design, but for mobile learning this does not always translate into change in practice. The reported research addresses this by coupling a mobile learning specific approach to activity theory with a practice-based framework: the design for transformative mobile learning framework mapped to the pedagogy-andragogy-heutagogy continuum matrix (the DTML-PAH Matrix). Seven case studies are analysed using this approach and presented narratively along with framework informed analysis. Findings include that the DTML-PAH Matrix can be used to provide clearer implications and guidance for mobile learning practice, and that the DTML-PAH Matrix can also be guided by the practice over time. Implications for further research and practice are discussed. Implications for practice or policy: Provide technological and pedagogical scaffolds to students. Learning designs should focus upon enabling elements of learner agency and creativity. To develop learning solutions to real world problems utilise a design-based research approach. Create authentic collaborative learning activities and tasks. Integrate mobile learning affordances in the design of the course and curriculum.

Erika Anne Hayfield & Helene Pristed Nielsen

This paper concerns belonging in islands. Place-belonging conjures images of feeling at home somewhere, in our case islands. Given the emotionality of belonging, we explore island belonging through emotions. More specifically, we apply the concept of the aquapelago to island belonging and refer to this as aquapelagic belonging. Bringing in emotions, embodied perceptions and mobility, we discuss how these are assembled in island-sea relations to form aquapelagic belonging. In doing so, we draw on qualitative data from fieldwork undertaken in locations where proximity to the sea and access to seaborne mobility is paramount. Our findings demonstrate how certain emotional dispositions and mobility practices emerge in processes of aquapelagic belonging, indicating that mobility is intricately entangled with island belonging. We propose that the interconnected nature of land and sea spaces co-produce emotions of belonging in island spaces. We therefore argue that the concept of aquapelagic belonging lends useful insight to understand what is particular about island belonging. Furthermore, we suggest that attention to mobility, which in this context means navigating land/sea environments, is key to understanding aquapelagic belonging. We conclude that to grasp island belonging, the notion of the aquapelago is relevant and assists in understanding the totality of island relations.

Going on a ride with Lefebvre: everyday contestation of platform mobilities in Mumbai

ABSTRACT Given the growing power and proliferation of digital platforms, urban research has been investigating the complex entanglements of platforms with urban social and material processes, highlighting the deeply political nature of platformization. By linking spatial theory and mobilities research, this contribution aims at offering a dialectical approach to study contested platform mobilities in Mumbai. Adopting a mobile view and research practice in the application of Henri Lefebvre’s concepts, I observe how mobilities assume different meanings in (platform) taxi drivers’ lives: on the one hand in mediating their own biographies and constraints with the urban reality, and on the other negotiating the increasingly repressive platform regimes in their everyday lives. This research approach detects differential space in the sense of Henri Lefebvre, in the way drivers appropriate or circumvent platform mechanisms beyond notions of overt resistance, thereby seeking to carve out meanings and notions of the political in the urban everyday. Besides adding to a growing body of literature under the umbrella of platform urbanism, this paper contributes to debates about empirical applications of Lefebvre’s concepts and recent engagements with his rhythmanalytical project. It also critically engages with applications of mobilities research and mobile methods beyond Europe and North America.

Looking back to look forward: 5G/COVID-19 conspiracies and the long history of infrastructural fears.

Almost as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading throughout much of the world, conspiracies arose that blamed the virus on the deployment of fifth-generation cellular networks (5G) infrastructure. These conspiracies had significant consequences, including protests against 5G and the destruction of 5G infrastructure. This article uses a media genealogy approach to place the 5G/COVID-19 conspiracies within the long and recurring cycle of conspiracies focused on mobile infrastructure. Placed within that broader history, this article argues that the 5G/COVID-19 conspiracies should have been unsurprising, and these types of infrastructural conspiracies should be a more significant part of mobile media and communication (MMC) research because infrastructures are an often invisible, yet crucial, part of the mobile practices studied within MMC research. The article concludes by theorizing about why mobile infrastructures are such a frequent target for conspiracy theories and argues that researchers should begin planning now for combatting the conspiracies that will almost inevitably arise when the next generation of mobile infrastructure gets linked to fears about public health.

Intelligent Real-Time Modelling of Rider Personal Attributes for Safe Last-Mile Delivery to Provide Mobility as a Service

This paper develops an intelligent real-time learning framework for the last-mile delivery of mobility as a service in city planning, based upon safe infrastructure use. Through a hybrid approach integrating statistics and supervised machine learning techniques, knowledge-driven solutions based on the specific user rather than generalized safe mobility practices are suggested. One of the most important aspects influencing transport mode and route selection, and safe infrastructure usage, i.e., the age of the user, is simulated. This is because this variable has been described in the literature as a significant variable. Nonetheless, few works deal with such modelling or the learning system. The learning system was applied in the Northumbria region of England’s northeast as a case study. It comprised four building toolkits: (a) Input toolkit, (b) Safety Predictive toolkit, (c) Variable causation toolkit, and (d) Route choice toolkit. An accurate dynamic road safety model and understanding of the critical parameters influencing bicycle rider safety is created. The developed deep learning model’s average distinguishing power to reliably predict the riskiest age group was 95%, with a standard deviation of 0.02, suggesting a good prediction accuracy across all age groups. According to the study’s findings, different infrastructural networks represent varying risks to bicycle riders of different ages. The rider’s age impacts how other road users engage with them. The regional diversity in trip intent and traffic flow conditions were significant elements influencing the safe use of infrastructure for a specific age group. The study’s findings have the potential to considerably influence infrastructure route selection, modelling, and planning. The constructed model, which integrates the rider’s fragility, sensitivity to externalities, and the varied safety impact dependent on its features, may even be used for the infrastructure still in the planning/design phase. It is envisaged that this research would aid in adopting sustainable (green) transportation options and the last-mile delivery of mobility as a service. Future work should aim to uncover the sensitivities of a rider from different countries and make a baseline comparison scenario.

The bright side of digitization: Assessing the impact of mobile phone domestication on left-behind children in China's rural migrant families.

This study examines the mobile phone practices of rural left-behind children (LBC) whose one or both parents migrate to cities for better earnings and the impact of such practices on migrant families in China. The study has used ethnographic approach by conducting participant observations and interviews of 21 LBC, residing in Guangren village, south China's Guangxi Autonomous Region. The study uses domestication theory to analyze these LBC's adoption of mobile phones in their daily routines and spaces in and out of their households. The key findings are as follows: (a) the LBC used mobile phones primarily to engage with their distant parent(s); (b) through collaborative efforts, they tried to enhance familial connections; and (c) they overcome the separation issue by co-participating in ongoing events, thus making the domestication of mobile phone a distant solving of real-world problems faced by migrant parent(s) and their LBC. The study concludes that LBC's innovative uses of mobile phones empowered them by building shared virtual space with their migrant parent(s), via which they handled the separation issue. In such shared virtual spaces, LBC's families have developed rich expressions of familial connections in various forms based on the limited perpetuate connectedness.

Reading the COVID-19 emergency with and beyond Foucault: The liberal subject and everyday practices of mobility

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, most analyses have used a Foucauldian perspective to investigate the disciplinary and surveillance mechanisms that (il/liberal) states introduced to contain the spread of the virus. Focussing on the Italian context, I suggest that, despite the mobility restrictions, the government retained overall its liberal rationality. Italian institutions did not aim to create a state of police nor to transform subjects into docile bodies. By reading the COVID-19 emergency with Foucault, I suggest approaching COVID-19 restrictions through the concept of governmentality, and propose that Italian institutions, at different levels, structured people’s fields of action by persuading, encouraging, and incentivising certain behaviours during the pandemic. However, I also suggest reading the COVID-19 emergency beyond Foucault by engaging with the work of Michel de Certeau and investigating the many ‘antidisciplinary practices’ through which people ‘metaphorized’ dominant (disciplinary) norms.

Sharing within the gig economy: The use of shared e-bikes by on-demand platform-based instant meal delivery workers in Paris

The gig economy and digital platforms have developed in an exponential way over the past few years. In large cities, instant on-demand meal delivery has gained tremendous momentum. This activity is mainly taken on by self-employed workers; consequently, they are in charge of providing their own equipment and vehicle, may it be their own or a rented vehicle. The aim of this paper is to explore delivery riders’ mobility practices in Paris. This research relies on quantitative data from a survey conducted in February 2021 on a sample of more than 500 instant meal delivery riders operating in the northeast district of Paris. Data allowed to characterize the mobility of delivery riders in Paris when on the job. Results reveal that 46.4% of them use bicycles and 38.8% of these bicycle riders rely on Paris’ public shared bicycle service, Vélib’. Results suggest that the Paris shared bicycle scheme allows them to access an electric bicycle at a cheap price. This raises several policy questions. First, in the mind of its early promoters, Vélib’ was not designed to serve the needs of professional delivery workers; their use of the service might limit the availability of bicycles for private users, among other operational challenges. Second, Vélib is providing precarious gig workers with a valuable resource to cope with the insecure conditions associated with instant delivery for digital platforms. This work brings new insights in terms of working conditions of delivery cyclists, and points to the need for comprehensive policy interventions at the municipal level.

Redefining marginality on Italian Apennines: an approach to reconsider the notion of basic needs in low density territories.

The concept of basic needs and essential services evolves according to sociocultural parameters. Therefore, defining marginality based on the distance from a predefined set of services, institutionally considered essential for life, may lead to an unfocused representation of marginal and more fragile areas.
 This work focuses on a territory located on the Apennine of the Province of Piacenza, northern Italy. These mountainous areas are characterized by significant shrinking processes, ageing population, low income and educational rate, unemployment, and by work/study-related mobility practices over long distances and at high speed, revealing low levels of attractivity and significant dependence on more dynamic areas of the region. Moreover, according to the National Italian Strategy for Inner Areas, they have been identified as inner areas because of the high distance from main services.
 Starting from quantitative research based on availability, location, and accessibility to a set of services considered essential, the present work aims to reconsider and integrate this desk-based approach with an on-site qualitative survey, thanks to interviews with inhabitants and persons with special knowledge of the territory as well as participant observation.
 The hypothesis is that, particularly in low density and peripheral areas, a mixed-methods research methodology that includes the accounts of populations and local stakeholders may help to extend the knowledge of their actual needs and their willingness to travel, thus reconsidering their accessibility to what they perceive as essential services and, consequently, redefining the notion of marginal and fragile territories.

Socio‐spatial negotiations in Lisbon: Reflections of working‐aged lifestyle migrants on place and privilege

AbstractIn the context of inequalities inherent in regimes of mobility and the rapid transformation of Lisbon by increased tourism and transnational mobility, this paper seeks to foreground under‐the‐radar narratives of young working‐aged middle‐class migrants on their socio‐spatial positioning in the city. Situated at the nexus of youth mobilities and lifestyle migration, our objective is to examine the stratifications and diversities present within lifestyle migration to the city by focusing on migration motivations and migrants' own reflections on their place‐making strategies and privilege in the city. Based on 10 narrative interviews and participant observation in transnational hangouts, our results reveal how the creation of “alternative” lifestyles is hinged on both mobility practices and local moorings as young movers reinvent themselves professionally in the place of arrival. Our results show that they negotiate their place and social position through (i) balancing place‐consumption practices between what is construed as the transnational and the local and (ii) by situating themselves outside of the subjective residential geography of privileged migrants. This is part of a moral code to appease their political conscience and justify their presence in a city that has been rapidly transformed by tourism and other transient populations.

Restructuring urban planning to facilitate sustainable consumption

Food, mobility, and housing are essential and fundamental to human life. At the same time, these consumption areas have the highest climate impact. To achieve a higher degree of climate-friendly consumption, radical changes in everyday practices of food, mobility, and housing are needed. In this paper, empirical data demonstrates that time is perceived as a limited resource in everyday life which drives (un)sustainable practices. Through discussions of the perception of time and related practices, it becomes visible that urban mobility planning connects specific food and housing practices through an understanding of historical and contemporary urban planning supporting time efficiency. This indicates that rethinking urban forms and infrastructure can provide frames that can restructure everyday practices to become more sustainable. To exemplify this, the 15-minute city concept is used as a speculative example of how to restructure everyday practices and facilitate a planning approach that is aligned with sustainable consumption.

Академическая мобильность студентов: ценности, установки и социальные практики на Юге России

Relevance: Academic mobility, as a special type of movement for the purpose of ed-ucational and scientific practices, is one of the mechanisms of self-regulation of the learning process of Russian students. In the South of Russia, expanding the prospects for intra-university and intra-Russian academic mobility contributes to improving the quality of education, creating a unified intellectual environment and promoting tour-ism practices. Scientific problem: A critical analysis of the scientific literature has shown that the scientific literature has not yet considered how the prevailing ideas about education and values affect students' attitudes to academic mobility. The pur-pose of this study was to identify the features of attitudes and social practices of ac-ademic mobility of Russian students, limited by formal external barriers existing in universities in the South of Russia. Methods: The theory of mental programs is used to study the concepts of education as a value, attitudes and social practices of aca-demic mobility. The analysis is based on the study of significant relationships of vari-ables through the Chi-square criterion. Research results: Attitudes to intra-university mobility are highest among students with pragmatic views, although, in general, ideas about education have little effect on intra-university mobility. Students with con-servative ideas show a great attitude to the practices of intra-Russian mobility, see them as an educational value. While students with liberal and pragmatic views believe that this may interfere with their studies at their native university or they are not in-terested in it. Most students have an attitude to international mobility, but do not have the financial opportunity for it. The number of implemented social practices is largely due to external factors, that is, the opportunities that exist in the universities of the Rostov region and the Republic of Crimea, as well as the state of academic mobility in Russian higher education in general. Conclusions: Academic mobility of students in Russia is of particular importance for improving the quality of higher edu-cation in the country. The student youth in the South of Russia, showing a high de-gree of self-regulation, demonstrates high attitudes to all types of academic mobility. However, the nature of attitudes is largely determined by the conservative and liberal ideas of students that have developed in the process of social programming.

Optimal@NRW: optimized acute care of nursing home residents using an intersectoral telemedical cooperation network — study protocol for a stepped-wedge trial

BackgroundIncreasing life expectancy is associated with a growing number of people living in nursing homes, while the availability of outpatient medical care, especially from family doctors, is stagnating in this sector. Consequently, numerous and often avoidable, low-threshold hospitalizations of nursing home residents are observed. This results in unnecessary use of resources such as emergency services and emergency rooms as well as in potential health risks to the nursing home residents related to hospitalization. This study aims to improve this healthcare gap by implementing an intersectoral telemedicine approach.MethodsTwenty-five nursing homes are participating and provided with telemedical equipment to perform teleconsultations. Additionally, an early warning system and a digital patient record system are implemented. Telephysicians based at RWTH Aachen University Hospital are ready to support the nursing homes around the clock if the family doctor or an emergency service practice is not available in time. Mobile non-physician practice assistants from the telemedicine centre can be dispatched to perform delegable medical activities. General practitioners and the medical emergency practices also have access to the telemedical infrastructure and the non-physician practice assistants.DiscussionOptimal@NRW adds a telemedicine component to standard care — combining elements of outpatient and inpatient health care as well as emergency service practices — to enable timely medical consultation for nursing home residents in case of the development of an acute medical condition. In addition to optimized medical care, the goal is to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions. The intersectoral approach allows for the appropriate use of resources to match the individually needed medical treatment.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.govNCT04879537. Registered on May 10, 2021

374. THE ROLE OF EARLY MOBILIZATION AFTER ESOPHAGEAL CANCER SURGERY

Abstract A key component of the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery pathway for esophagectomy is early mobilization. Evidence on a specific protocol of early and structured mobilization is scarce, which explains variation in clinical practice. This study aims to describe and evaluate the early mobilization practice after esophagectomy for cancer in a tertiary referral center in the Netherlands. This retrospective cohort study included data from a prospectively maintained database of patients who underwent an esophagectomy between 01-01-2015 and 01-01-2020. Early mobilization entailed increase in activity with the first target of ambulating 100 meters. Primary outcomes were the number of postoperative days (PODs) until achieving this target and the reasons for not achieving this target. Secondary outcomes were the relationship between preoperative factors (e.g. Sex, BMI, ASA-score) and achieving the target on POD1, and the relationship between achieving the target on POD1 and postoperative outcomes (e.g. readmissions, postoperative complications). In total 384 patients were included. The median POD of achieving the target was 2 (IQR 1-3), with 173 (45.1%) patients achieving this on POD1. Main reasons for not achieving the target on POD1 was due to hemodynamic instability (22.7%). Male sex was associated with achieving the target on POD1 (OR = 2.08, p = 0.007); achieving the target on POD1 was not associated with postoperative outcomes. Ambulation up to 100 m on POD1 is achievable in patients after esophagectomy, with men having higher odds for achieving this target. No relationship between early mobilization and postoperative outcomes was found, however it may have effect on other parameters, such as improved long-term recovery, this should be investigated further in a larger patient cohort. ERAS pathways focusing on esophagectomy care are encouraged to incorporate 100 m ambulation on POD1 in their guideline as first postoperative target.

Effects of Mobile App-Based Mindfulness Practice on Healthcare Workers: a Randomized Active Controlled Trial

ObjectivesAmidst the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers (HCWs) may be at greater risk of suffering from psychological distress compared to the general population. This study aimed to investigate the effects of mindfulness practice as delivered using Headspace on psychological and cognitive outcomes among HCWs in Singapore.MethodsA total of 80 HCWs were recruited and randomly assigned to engage in either 3 weeks (10 min/day) of mindfulness practice using Headspace or an active control condition (Lumosity; involving playing cognitive games). Participants were administered several self-report measures and two working memory (digit span) tasks at pre- and post-intervention, and one-month follow-up.ResultsThere were no significant between-condition changes on any outcome variables from pre- to post-intervention. From pre-intervention to 1-month follow-up, there were significantly greater improvements among Headspace participants on fear of COVID-19 (p = .005), compassion satisfaction (p = .007), trait mindfulness (p = .002), self-compassion (p = .005), sleep quality (p = .002), and the forward digit span task (p < .001). Several outcomes were mediated by increases in trait mindfulness or self-compassion.ConclusionsUse of Headspace may lead to downstream benefits in reducing distress and improving psychological health outcomes among HCWs. The findings have implications for improving psychological support resources for HCWs amidst a pandemic.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04936893).