This paper sets the context for four papers on multi-method research in population geography. It begins by outlining the various ends to which multi-method research may be employed. The focus then shifts to the broader plane of method, epistemology, and research design. It is argued that epistemological position only determines how methods can be used: it does not preclude the use of particular methods. The possibilities for multi-method research are therefore considerable. Finally, some issues pertaining to multi-method research that have not yet been resolved are raised for future debate.

This paper discusses findings from Australian research that used a qualitative and participatory methods approach to understand how children develop and negotiate their everyday mobility. Children's mobility negotiations are discussed in reference to interactions with parents, peers and places; journeys in relation to their multi-modality, compositionality and temporality; and mobility formations in terms of 'companionship'travel companions, companion devices, and ambient companions. Children's mobility is characterised by interdependencies that both enable and configure this mobility. Three themescompositions, collaborations and compromisesare used to detail and describe some of the ways these interdependencies take shape and unfold.

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There is growing recognition that UK austerity measures impact adversely and more acutely on the most disadvantaged individuals, communities and groups. These changes may be understood as representing a shift of responsibility away from collectives to individuals. This paper explores these issues through the lens of risk analysis. Drawing on case study research from one neighbourhood in one Scottish local authority, it considers how the distinctive polity in Scotland, in the context of austerity, is redistributing social risk to vulnerable communities, groups and individuals. The local community is adapting, with varying degrees of success, to the risk transfers they are experiencing. Formal and informal risk mitigation measures are ameliorating, but not countering, these risks. The penultimate section of the paper is a collaborative endeavour. Drawing from a seminar discussion with key informants from academia, the Third Sector and government in Scotland, some of the implications of this 'risk shift' are discussed; particularly in relation to extending personalisation, stresses on social capital, changing understanding of securities, demographic developments, widening social divisions and alternatives to austerity economics.

Children feature prominently in migration, fertility and mortality studies and are evident in those more broadly-based geographies which consider the importance of population to socio-economic and environmental issues. However, it is argued that the population geography of childhood is a mirage, in that children are ever-present, but never really there. Trends toward the pursuit of`peopled' population geographies and the emergence of a (social) geography of childhood provide contexts within which new population geographies involving children can emerge. Such geography holds out the prospect of enriching our understanding of population patterns and processes. To realise this goal necessitates a theoretical engagement with children and childhood.