Urban pram strolling: a mobilities design perspective

Baby on board: the impact of sling use on experiences of family mobility with babies and young children

“…Firstly, I have illustrated how a focus on mobilities design (Jensen 2016, Jensen 2017, Larsen 2017) can be combined with a concern for the affectual and relational experience of mobility for families (Boyer and Spinney 2016) to explain why slings work in the way that they do. It is not that prams, car seats or other child mobility devices are non-relational (this study also found many instances of children being fed, comforted and relationships developed in the pram, car etc.)…”

“…Equally, the examples given here illustrate how the design affordances of the sling (small and 'packable' size, different carrying positions and the ability to facilitate easy conversation between parent and child) enable these fluxes to be managed relatively seamlessly from moment to moment. In this way, it becomes possible to 'do' family in different ways (Jensen 2016(Jensen , 2017)for example, by using the affective affordances/skinship (Tahan 2010, 2013, Jensen 2017) enabled by the sling to manage potential challenges (tiredness, busy roads, cold weather) differently. Equally, such conclusions are a reminder of the importance of exploring early family life 'in the moment', as it were, since research over a longer timespan of months or years tends to obscure these momentary fluxes in mobility through a focus on the growing independence and capabilities of children as they grow (Rau and Sattlegger 2017).…”

“…Inspired, in particular, by themes from phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1968, Heidegger 1992, this article brings concepts such as skinship (Tahan 2010), interembodiment (Lupton 2013) and affective atmospheres (Anderson 2009) into conversation with recent literatures on family practices (Hall and Holdsworth 2016;Valentine 2008) and the importance of design and materiality for mobilities (Jensen 2016, Jensen 2017). In particular, I take inspiration from the new focus on infant geographies (Holt 2013) and the mobility experiences of new parents and babies (Boyer and Spinney 2016;Clement and Waitt 2018).…”

An agenda for creative practice in the new mobilities paradigm

“…Building on preoccupations with walking, motion, and kinaesthetics in mobilities (e.g. Bhattacharya and Barry 2021;Clement and Waitt 2018;Heddon and Misha 2017;Trandberg Jensen 2018), Clare Q ualmann's Perambulator series paves a way for engaging with pedestrian encounters in public space, in a similar manner to Kaya Barry and Jondi Keane's collective works titled Immobile Measures. Responding to the changed social and spatial measures implemented in the pandemic, Barry and Keane's creative dialogue highlights the constrained sensations of wayfinding and isolation directives.…”

Babies’ engagements with everyday things : An ethnographic study of materiality, movement and participation

“…I argue that these discussions on the effects of pushing or handling a pram can also be understood in line with the idea of babies' social effects on the world they live in, because the prams are present because there is a baby to push in it. Clement and Waitt (2018) examine the effects of pram mobilities in their account of what they call "mother-child-pram assemblages" where, in contrast to Jensen (2018), they also more explicitly address children's practices while sitting in the prams. While the study includes babies as young as a few months, it is older children's experiences that provide the focus.…”