Doing mobile ethnography: Grounded, situated and comparative

This paper explores and discusses the experimental, critical and self-reflective use of differing methods in urban studies. In the context of frequent calls to investigate urban processes in a planetary and comparative perspective, the empirical groundedness of research is among the particularly complex challenges urban scholars are confronted with. The key question is: how can qualitative-empirical methods, such as ethnography or qualitative mapping, be adapted to explore contemporary urban conditions? This paper seeks to contribute to current debates by introducing a specific methodological design of a mobile ethnography that enables an analysis of large and heterogeneous urban territories, in three main ways: first, by offering a theoretically informed and empirically grounded transductive research design; second, by proposing a complementary set of cartographic, historiographic and comparative methods of which mobile ethnography is a part; and third, by suggesting post- and decolonial methodological perspectives, both conceptually by engaging with Latin American urbanisms, as well as empirically by furthering collaborative ways of knowledge production. To conclude, the paper stresses the need to continually develop new inventive methods for comparative urban research, for two main reasons: (1) to enable scholars to question established geographical representations and parochial imaginaries of urban space, and (2) to problematise methodological and theoretical dogmas with situated knowledge. By suggesting different representations of the urban, the paper thus emphasises how important it is to transductively entangle empirical and theoretical conceptualisations to further decentre and pluralize urban knowledge production 本文探讨和讨论了不同方法在城市研究中的实验性、批判性和自我反思性的使用。在频繁呼吁以行星和比较的角度研究城市过程的背景下，研究的经验基础是城市学者面临的特别复杂的挑战之一。关键问题是：如何调整定性经验方法（如人种学或定性测绘）以研究当代城市条件？通过引入流动民族志的特定方法设计，本文试图促进当前的探讨。该设计能够以三种主要方式分析大型和异质的城市地区：首先，提供具有良好理论和经验基础的转导研究设计；第二，提出一套互补的制图、历史和比较方法，流动民族志是其中的一部分；第三，提出后殖民化和非殖民化的方法论观点（从概念上，是通过结合拉丁美洲城市化，从实证上，是通过推进合作的知识生产方式）。总之，本文强调需要不断开发新颖方法进行比较城市研究，主要有两个理由：（1）使学者能够质疑已建立的地理表征和城市空间的狭隘想象，以及（2）以适当的知识对教条化的方法论和理论提出问题。本文对城市的不同表述提出了建议，从而强调了将经验和理论概念化进行转导性结合、以使城市知识生产进一步去中心化和多元化的重要性。