The second Mobile Worlds workshop was held on 4 April 2024 as a “mini” version, of a little less than one hour, at HVL. The workshop explored culture as the set of norms and values guiding – often almost imperceptibly – a given group’s thoughts and actions. It was fun to see the results emerging (see photos below), showing for instance that many more participants felt they related to non-nationally and non-regionallly based cultures, such as care for the environment, outdoor culture, and international idealists. Regional differences between urban and rural areas were also considered key. Quite a lot of people seemed to identify with more than the cultures they had themselves proposed (i.e. they recognized themselves in the cultures named by other participants), and especially in terms of regional, farming, and environmental care cultures. Cycling, walking and public transport all came up as important modes of transport, with several participants choosing to cycle to work for diverse reasons, such as environmental but also fun, and financial reasons.

When invited to explore ideal futures (which we admittedly had too little time for!), participants in one group made a beautiful bike (see photo below) to represent their ideal in terms of mobility – and discussed how this should be facilitated more. Another group got little to making, but discussed in depth the repercussions of housing costs and public transport development (leading to better access but also higher housing prices) on the possibilities of people using cycling, walking or public transport rather than a private car. They imagined a middle class culture to have a specific future in this sense, also impacted in terms of their likelihood to have (more than one) child, due to spatial constraints (in relation to affordability).

This was a very rich workshop, and one in which trying out a format using post-its seemed to be quite impactful. Quick individual exercises allowing for longer discussions between participants in the interactive parts also seemed to have a positive effect. We will keep these insights in mind for our further methodological development. As for the content results, we will do more analyzing to draw further conclusions, and look forward to sharing our insights here and in our upcoming academic papers!

Another big thanks to the participants of this workshop!