Volume: 9  Number: 4&5  Page: 320–334  doi:10.2167/cit262.0

International Mobility Biographies: A Means to Capture the Institutionalisation of Long-distance Travel?

Lotta Frändberg Department of Human and Economic Geography, University of Göteborg, Sweden

An important aspect of current international travel and tourism is the degree to which they are becoming embedded as regularised and prescribed parts of the lives of individuals, families, and various organisations. At the individual and family levels, patterns of regularised international mobility often only manifest themselves on a time scale that far exceeds that of the reference periods normally used in long-distance travel surveys. Other methods are thus needed to address these issues. This paper discusses a particular method used in ongoing research into the international mobility of young Swedes. Students in the last year of upper secondary school are asked to formulate their international mobility biographies, i.e. all international trips conducted during their childhood and adolescence. The paper discusses the potential of such a ‘biographical approach’ to gathering information about various forms of the regularisation or institutionalisation of international mobility. The approach suggested is contextualised through a review of relevant biographically oriented concepts and approaches in the fields of mobility and tourism research. Methodological challenges involved in collecting information on travel behaviour retrospectively are then discussed, with reference to initial experience gained from research concerning the international mobility of young Swedes.

Keywords: biography, institutionalisation, method, mobility, retrospective, travel

© 2006 L. Frändberg

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