Social-Movement Pattern Analysis: New Digital Methods to Analyse Activity Space in Urban Areas

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a research approach which wants to be understood as a proposal for a new version of urban sociological and geographical activity-space research. The methodological approach is illustrated by an explorative study with students from Koblenz (Germany). According to the mixed-methods approach "Explanatory Sequential Design", we combine quantitative and qualitative survey and evaluation procedures. Thereby, we collect student movement data with the help of a smartphone app in order to localise student "hotspots". Additionally, we link them to information about the students' individual lifestyles so as to achieve a differentiation of their movement sequences (movement patterns). Finally, we complement the collected data with qualitative observations of the localised "hotspots" in order to develop a closer understanding of the "Why?" of the movement patterns. Without raising a claim for representativeness, our results show that the movement patterns and identified localities can be described along lifestyle-specific differentiation criteria. When the respective locations are regarded more closely, indications for a close fit between the theoretically implicated assumptions regarding lifestyle types and spatial relationships on the one hand and the sought out localities on the other hand can be identified.

Keywords

• Activity space research
• Movement patterns
• Mixed methods
• GPS-tracking
• Lifestyle