Design

In this chapter, Ole B. Jensen takes a situational approach to mobilities to examine how ordinary life activities are structured by technology and design. Using “staging mobilities” as a theoretical approach, Jensen considers mobilities as overlapping, actions, interactions and decisions by designers, planners, etc. (staging from above) and mobile subjects (staging from below). A research agenda for studying situated practices of mobility and mobilities design is outlined in three directions: foci of studies, methods and approaches, and epistemologies and frames of thinking. Jensen begins with a brief description of how movement is studied within social sciences after the “mobilities turn” versus the idea of physical movement in transport geography and engineering. He then explains how “mobilities design” was derived from connections between traffic and architecture. Jensen concludes by providing ideas about future research for investigating mobilities in situ as a kind of “staging,” which he notes is influenced by the “material turn” in social sciences.