Investigating perpetual travel : email interviews and longitudinal methods in travel, tourism and mobilities research

Corporeal travel is deeply entwined in daily experiences, performances, sensualities, imaginings, memories, communications and mobilities (Leed 1991, Rojek and Urry 1997, Urry 2007). As such, in a liquid modern world, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between notions such as home, away, departure, arrival, return, before, during and after travel is a perpetual state of being (Bauman 2000, Urry 2007). In this context, researchers such as Urry (2007), Hannam (2009) and Mavric and Urry (2009) argue that physical travel should not be separated from other forms of mobility; courtesy of historic and contemporary mobilities, they are entangled. Corporeal travel is informed by (and informs) all other mobilities, whether they be physical, virtual, communicative and/or imaginative (Urry 2007); albeit to varying degrees, an individual is travelling before, during and after any given physical travel experience. In addition, physical travel does not end upon one's 'return' home it is continued in a variety of ways, including through photographs, objects, social relationships, roles, routines and performance and through inhabiting a fluid place (Lean 2012a). Given the growing acknowledgement of the perpetual nature of travel and its intersection with mobile lifestyles (as evidenced in this volume), there is a need for a concomitant shift in the methods used for investigating this phenomenon (Uny 2007, Buscher, Urry and Witchger 2011). Methods that can observe lived experience over an extended period need to be employed. The following chapter reflects upon methods used in an ongoing exploration of transformation through travel. Commencing in 2005, the study utilizes email interviews, in a longitudinal design, to investigate the accounts of individuals who believe they have been 'transformed' by physical travel. It explores how these corporeal travel experiences and transformations intersect with other mobilities and experiences over the respondent's life course. Drawing upon participant feedback and literature on email interviews and longitudinal research, I reflect upon my experiences using this method and provide a series of considerations for other researchers who may want to employ a similar methodological design in their own projects.