Apologies for cross-posting …
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference, London 31st August-2nd September 2016
Session title:
Apps, mobiles and technologies: innovative methodologies in research with children, young people and families
Session sponsorship: Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group
Session convenors:
Sophie Hadfield-Hill, University of Birmingham ([log in to unmask]); Cristiana Zara, University of Birmingham ([log in to unmask])
Session abstract:
This session brings together researchers working with innovative technological tools in their research with children, young people and families. Technologies are embedded in our everyday lives, shaping our practices, our social interactions and our relationship with space. How bodies communicate, navigate, move, work, play, eat and sleep are associated with technology. This provides a unique opportunity for addressing nexus thinking in our research with children and young people. First, a focus on technology can offer insight into interconnections, interdependencies and nexus relations, given the plethora of technologies (i.e. apps, mobiles, social media) which are woven throughout the social and material fabric of everyday life. Second, considering this pervasiveness, there are opportunities for researchers to embrace technological tools to explore this interconnectedness methodologically. Indeed, geographers are increasingly searching for, and experimenting with innovative uses of technologies in their research, prompting ethical, practical, empirical and theoretical enquiry. How researchers engage with, adapt and co-design technological tools with participants is of interest, highlighting the diversity of opportunities and challenges that this presents to research with children, young people and families across contexts and communities. The aim of this session is threefold: i) to explore the ways in which everyday technologies can be used to support existing qualitative methodologies in research with children and families; ii) to unpack the ethical implications of using technological devices as research tools with diverse population groups; and iii) to critically assess the potential of everyday technologies in researching nexus issues, cross-cutting themes, theories and methodologies.
We invite papers which develop theoretical and methodological understanding of using apps, mobiles and technology in research with children, young people and families. We are particularly interested in a critical discussion of the following:
• Technological tools: mobile devices; mobile apps; GPS; social media; digital forums; audio-visual; web- based; cyber-ethnography; videogames
• Glitches, faults and tweaks - methodological challenges
• Technology and intergeneration
• New methods, new epistemologies
• Technologies in mixed methods research
• Technologies in multi-disciplinary research
• Participatory research using technologies
• Appropriate use of everyday technologies in research
• Digital skills, access, (in)equality
• Using everyday technologies across contexts and communities – whose everyday?
• Security and safety, methodologies in the digital era
• Avatars, memes, internet cultures and virtual realities
• Technological tools for research at the margins
• Mobile methods, mobile childhoods
Submitting abstracts:
Authors should submit abstracts of up to 250 words to Cristiana Zara ([log in to unmask]) by 5th February, 2016.
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