Urban pram strolling: a mobilities design perspective

Abstract

This paper explores a neglected mode of mobility through an ethnographic study of pram strollers in Copenhagen. I illustrate the analytic advantages of mobilities design thinking to explore how pram strolling is shaped by material designs and experienced through affective atmospheres, embodied practices and social encounters. In so doing, the pram is seen as a significant, yet largely overlooked, designed artifact that affords urban mobility. In the creative vein of mobilities design, the paper experiments with a new style of visual ethnography, surface ethnography, to help unravel the affordances of surfaces. In this process, I relate pram strolling to questions of urban accessibility issues, and more generally, reflect on the future applications and potentials of mobilities design thinking.