Go-alongs as a space-sensitive research method

Alena Pfoser and Vivien Sommer will provide insights into the go-alongs method during a workshop on September 10, 2025.

Go-alongs are accompanied interviews conducted while walking, in which researchers walk together with the research participants through an environment familiar to the latter. This method opens up special insights into everyday spatial perception, implicit knowledge, and emotional connections to places.

Through conversation in motion, memories, impressions, and physical-spatial experiences are spontaneously activated and verbalized. Go-alongs combine qualitative interviews with participant observation and allow for a multi-layered, multi-perspective analysis. Through conversation in motion, memories, impressions, and physical-spatial experiences are spontaneously activated and verbalized. Go-alongs combine qualitative interviews with participant observation and allow for multi-layered, context-bound data collection. In the workshop, we will introduce the theoretical and methodological context of go-alongs, present our own research experiences, and try out the method in a short outdoor exercise. Finally, we will reflect together on its applicability to your specific research projects. The workshop is aimed at IRS doctoral students who are conducting research using qualitative methods on space, everyday life, or the city—or who are considering doing so.

Alena Pfoser is a Mercator Fellow in the Emmy Noether Research Group “Borders and Memory” of the Research Focus “Economy and Civil Society.” She was last a guest at IRS in 2024.