A family perspective on daily (im)mobilities and gender-disability intersectionality in Sweden

Abstract

Women usually have more complex mobilities than men do, not least if having young children in need of mobility provision. Moreover, travelling can be more challenging if having a disability, and parents of disabled children usually face many constraints in relation to everyday mobility, which implies that mothers of disabled children might experience gender-disability intersectionality in relation to mobility. This paper is based on interviews with mothers with wheelchair-using children living in Sweden and explores intersectionality from a family perspective – gender of the mother and disability of a child. The paper is based on time geography, especially focusing on the competition between time-geographical projects in everyday life. The findings suggest that gender-disability intersectionality affect the mothers’ geographical freedom and can imply both increased mobility and immobility in their lives.

Keywords:

• Disabled children
• gender
• intersectionality
• mobility
• time geography

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the parents who participated in this study and candidly shared their experiences of daily mobilities. I am also thankful for the useful comments and feedback I received from the anonymous reviewers and editors, Kanchana N Ruwanpura and Lena Grip, of Gender, Place and Culture.

Disclosure statement

The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Transport Administration (Grant number: DNR TRV 2017/19063) and the Umeå University programme ‘Mobility, Transformation and Regional Growth’ (Grant number: UMU-300-2054-12).

Notes on contributors

Emma Landby

Emma Landby is a PhD candidate in human geography whose main research interest is mobility for families with disabled children, including both everyday mobility and tourism mobility.