Amy Lubitow
Dr. Amy Lubitow is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Her research has explored barriers to mobility amongst marginalized groups in the United States. Specifically, she has sought to utilise qualitative and community-based research methods to reveal the unique challenges that low-income individuals, people of color, and transgender people face when using active transportation modes (such as walking, cycling, and riding public transport). This scholarship has been published in in academic outlets such as Mobilities, The Journal of Transport Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Geography, City & Community (among others). Her larger theoretical interests are related to urban and environmental sociology, gentrification studies, and feminist geography. She enjoys teaching courses on research methods, classical sociological theories, and the sociology of horror films.
Project Research Question: Utilizing mobile interviewing techniques, what kinds of social, environmental, and/or infrastructural barriers most impact the mobility of marginalized individuals, particularly those with disabilities, persons of color, immigrants, and transgender individuals?
As part of the research collaboration Amy will be leading two workshops:
Workshop on Mobile Data Collection with Marginalized Groups
This 3 hour masterclass is ideal for students and practitioners who wish to develop their qualitative research skills in a hands-on and collaborative manner. Specific training will include a primer on conducting interviews with low-income individuals, people of color, non-native English speakers. Additional guidance will be offered on mobile interviewing techniques wherein the researcher engages a research participant while on the move. Participants will leave this workshop with a clear understanding of how to engage marginalized groups in qualitative and mobile research and they will have practiced both their interviewing skills and taking fieldnotes while on the move.
One Day Mobile Data Collection Workshop
Participants who completed the Mobile Data Collection Workshop are welcome to continue practicing these skills by joining a one day data collection effort where a team of researchers will partner with a local organisation in order to collect mobile interview data on barriers to active travel. Those who participate in this workshop will be also invited to participate in the data analysis phase of this project in late summer and fall of 2020; with the goal of completing a co-authored report or paper.