Page - 84 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

84 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Samantha Wilkinson, Catherine Wilkinson | Night-Life and Young People’s Atmospheric Mobilities drinking practices and experiences when discussing them with a friend, of their own age, in comparison to with a researcher (see Wilkinson, C. and Wilkinson, S. 2017). The drawing-elic- itation interview was particularly useful in gaining insight into young people’s alcohol-related micro-geographies; whilst the first author expected the maps to provide a static snapshot of drinking spaces, she was surprised how much young people’s mobilities came through in the drawings (e.g. indicated by arrows), and also in the accompanying oral discussions. The first author found that participant observation, in which she travelled with people and things, par- ticipating in their continual shift through time, places and relations with others (Watts and Urry 2008), was beneficial in seeing and feeling young people’s atmospheric im/mobilities. The first author’s positionality, as a young, fashionable, female, who struck up friendships with participants (see Wilkinson, C. 2016), meant that she was able to blend into various night-life spaces, without causing young people to modify their drinking practices. Concerning data analysis, the first author transcribed, verbatim, interview material, and field notes. When analysing drawings, she placed emphasis on the narratives of participants accompanying their pictures, in the form of drawing elicitation interviews. This chimes with Barker and Smith’s (2001) contention that the interpretation of images should be undertaken with participants to ensure that their intended meanings are explored, rather than interpre- tive meanings imposed by the researcher. The manual method of coding by pen and paper was adopted for all transcribed data, perceiving that computer-assisted qualitative data analysis distances researchers from the data (Davis and Meyer 2009). Initially, following Miles and Huberman’s (1994) three-stage model, the first author exercised a process of data reduction, whereby she organised the mass of data and attempted to meaningfully reduce this. Second, she undertook a process of data display in the form of a table. Third, she undertook a process of conclusion drawing and verification. Participants feature in this paper through pseudonyms, as do names of bars/pubs and roads, to conceal participants’ identities. Yet, in order to con- textualise quotations, participant ages and case study locations are given. Having discussed the methods underpinning the study, we now explore young people’s vehicular im/mobilities. Alcohol-Related Vehicular Im/mobilities Some young people in the study, particularly those from Chorlton, enjoyed consuming alco- hol in their local area, due to the slower rhythms, and a more relaxed alcohol consumption ex perience, in comparison to consuming alcohol in Manchester’s city centre. However, there were occasions where young people desired to go “out out” (Rex, 24, Chorlton, interview); that is, to go on a ‘big’ night out in Manchester city centre. In such instances, young people from Chorlton and Wythenshawe employed the affordances of transport to break away from the place temporalities typical of their suburban locales (see Vannini 2012 on the affordances of ferries to break away from the temporalities of city life). See Figure 1: