Journal
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 75, Issue 1, Pages 233-239Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.01.038
Keywords
UK; Active travel; Commuting; Qualitative research; Social practice
Funding
- Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence
- British Heart Foundation
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Medical Research Council
- National Institute of Health Research
- Wellcome Trust
- National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research [09/3001/06]
- Department of Health
- ESRC [ES/G007462/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- MRC [MC_UP_1001/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/G007462/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Medical Research Council [MC_UP_1001/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- National Institute for Health Research [09/3001/06] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Fostering physical activity is an established public health priority for the primary prevention of a variety of chronic diseases. One promising population approach is to seek to embed physical activity in everyday lives by promoting walking and cycling to and from work ('active commuting') as an alternative to driving. Predominantly quantitative epidemiological studies have investigated travel behaviours, their determinants and how they may be changed towards more active choices. This study aimed to depart from narrow behavioural approaches to travel and investigate the social context of commuting with qualitative social research methods. Within a social practice theory framework, we explored how people describe their commuting experiences and make commuting decisions, and how travel behaviour is embedded in and shaped by commuters' complex social worlds. Forty-nine semi-structured interviews and eighteen photo-elicitation interviews with accompanying field notes were conducted with a subset of the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study cohort, based in the UK. The findings are discussed in terms of three particularly pertinent facets of the commuting experience. Firstly, choice and decisions are shaped by the constantly changing and fluid nature of commuters' social worlds. Secondly, participants express ambiguities in relation to their reasoning, ambitions and identities as commuters. Finally, commuting needs to be understood as an embodied and emotional practice. With this in mind, we suggest that everyday decision-making in commuting requires the tactical negotiation of these complexities. This study can help to explain the limitations of more quantitative and static models and frameworks in predicting travel behaviour and identify future research directions. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available