We're geographers and we're really interested in how being in a particular place affects the way people think about it. We've undertaken a series of projects using mobile techniques for collecting stories and opinions from people whilst actually in the place they're telling us about.
A number of techniques for doing this have been developed and refined, primarily using GPS ('sat-nav') technology to allow us to connect people's feelings about their environment to the location they're in at that moment. Sometimes this involves walking interviews, sometimes asking people to narrate a journey around their local area, sometimes using mobile devices (PDAs, phones etc.) to make a record of their environment. If you look in the project pages, you can see maps produced by these different techniques.
We're currently analysing the data from a project looking at commuter cyclists coming to the University of Birmingham. Check out the Cycling page for more details.
Rescue Geography is a non-commercial body interested in people's understandings of their local environment. A lot of what we do involves playing with various mobile gadgets.
At the heart of Rescue Geography are two academic geographers, Phil Jones and James Evans. Phil is based at the University of Birmingham and James at the University of Manchester.