Rescue Geography was a project that ran from 2007-10, starting with a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council. The idea is based around exploring how being in a particular place affects the way people think about it. We undertook 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 Eastside and Cycling project pages, you can see maps produced by these different techniques.
The project resulted in a number of outputs, some of which are publically accessible, others requiring a subscription to academic journals.
Jones P & Evans J (2011) Creativity and project management: a comic ACME10;3 585-632 Free access
Rescue Geography was a project examining people's understandings of their local environment. Much of the work involved the use of mobile technologies.
The project leaders were two academic geographers, Phil Jones from the University of Birmingham and James Evans from the University of Manchester.