ABSTRACT
The ‘mobile ethnography’ is used to describe ethnographic studies of mobile phenomena, patterns of movement, mobile life or mobile society. Ethnography has its roots in anthropology and is the study of people and culture: it is field-based, multi-method and multi-faceted. Ethnography is best understood as a methodology, which is the overall framework that guides a research project. Mobile ethnography is covered by the umbrella term of ‘mobile methods’, which use mobile technology to collect, record, interpret and/or analyse quantitative or qualitative data, and by the umbrella term of ‘digital ethnography’, which encompasses all forms of digital technology-based ethnography. Mobile technology helps to provide insight into participant behaviour, enabling the ethnographer to view the world from their perspective. Mobile ethnographic apps and software can be used in standalone ethnographic studies, combined with more traditional qualitative methods to gain deeper insight or used as one part of a larger ethnographic study.
