Making Everyday Mobility

Based upon a qualitative PhD study of 11 families everyday mobility, this paper inquiries into the everyday mobility of families with children in the Greater Copenhagen Area and the role mobility plays in contributing to coping in the families’ everyday life. Drawing on Mobilities theory (Jensen 2013; Urry 2007) and family theory (Holdsworth 2013; Morgan 2011), it is argued that family mobility is far from only an instrumental phenomenon, displacing family members back and forth between activities and doings, but also a type of family practice (Morgan, 2011) carrying social and emotional repercussions. Moreover, family mobility does not simply happen, rather the successful performance of everyday mobility is a creative process that requires labour, skill and knowledge (Vannini 2012). It is proposed that families cope with everyday life through the on-going making and performance of mobility practices. Specific heterogeneous configurations in mobility practices facilitate instrumental movement of family members, but can also engender care, quality time of togetherness, recreational and productive in-betweens, as well as sensorial and emotional experiences through the orchestration of affective atmospheres. Moreover, the performances of these mobility practices themselves play an important role in the process of coping as family members micro-coordinate and re-order the family mobility on the move to avoid disruptions in the socio-temporal ordering in family life. To conceptualise this dynamic coping process in the family, it is argued that making and performing mobility practices is to be understood as creating elasticity. Following this, it is elasticity that enables family members to stretch to accommodate the family’s practical, social and emotional conditions as well as adapt to the contingent and dynamic environment in which everyday life is lived. References: Holdsworth, C. (2013) Family and Intimate Mobilities, Palgrave Macmillan, New York Jensen, O.B. (2013) Staging Mobilities, Routledge, London & New York Morgan, D.H. (2011) Rethinking family practices, Palgrave Macmillan Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities, Polity, Cambridge Vannini, P. (2012) Ferry tales: Mobility, place, and time on Canada's west coast, Taylor & Francis