The frictions of slow tourism mobilities: Conceptualising campervan travel

Abstract

This paper discusses the materialities of campervan travel as a relatively 'slow' form of tourism mobilities. The research is based upon qualitative research with campervan owners and users in the UK. Previous research has emphasised notions of freedom associated with campervan travel and how it has developed its own subculture. We seek to move beyond this to examine the frictions of socially and physically embodied practices of campervan travel in order to address the call for more multi-sensory understandings of tourism mobilities. In our discussion of campervan travel, mobility is understood as intensities of circulations, uncertainties and relational affects where different aspects of friction are central. We conclude by discussing the campervan in relation to wider aspects of slow travel.

Mindsets Set in Concrete? Exploring the Perspectives of Domestic Travellers on New Zealand’s (Auto-)Mobility Culture

“…Previous research from quantitative transport science highlights the relevance of instrumental choice motives including costs, time and the reliability of the available services. In contrast, the study of tourism mobilities emphasizes the importance of the emotional and symbolic nature of car use motives, and the role that togetherness, privacy, freedom, a sense of control and experiential expectations may play [9,12]. Research on mobility cultures, defined as "specific socio-cultural settings consisting of travel patterns, the built environment, and mobility-related discourses" [31], additionally highlights the role of public norms and discourses-as well as materialized infrastructures and spatial forms-in such decisions.…”

“…Novel insights were generated by applying Q Methodology as an inherently mixed method to the under-researched study field of the domestic tourism mobilities of Christchurch residents. By building on existing research on tourism mobilities [9,12], mobility cultures [8,31,43], travel motives and transport mode choices [20,23,32], it attempts to strengthen the interrelations and intersections between these research domains. In doing so, the paper provides a more integrated perspective on tourism-related mobility narratives and practices.…”

“…Partly, this is justified by the characteristics of certain leisure activities (i.e., weather-dependent sports) as well as the importance of being "in control of our own timings" [P13] that benefit from flexibility. This desire for freedom is strongly tied to the necessity of automobility [12]. It reflects the individualist traits related to car usage, allowing people to act more upon personal preferences and attitudes than societal considerations [32,66].…”

Crafting a DIY Campervan and Crafting Embodied, Gendered Identity Performances in a Hyper-masculine Environment

“…This paper is an experimental collage of textual pieces and photos. As very little has so far been written in the scholarly literature about campervans (see Wilson & Hannam, 2017), this approach allows for a grounding of insight in lived, embodied experience, compellingly told. The style contrasts radically, I hope, with traditional academic writing, which Badley (2014) argues causes scholars to sound "more like a jargon-spouting robot" than "a human being with a story to tell" (p. 986).…”

Memory Matter(s): Assembling Memorials in Post-Genocide Rwanda

“…Moreover, the encounters will stress friction as lived and felt, exploring affective, sensible, and embodied registers of memorialization. Therefore, friction should be understood as simultaneously physical, cultural, discursive, material, embodied; as intensities of circulations, uncertainties and relational affects (Wilson;Hannam, 2017).…”