**Stuff:
The mother in the city: the encumbered body**
In the study Lisa Baraitser explorers the new urban sport of 'freerunning' or Parkour. Freerunners jump from building to building, some say that they bungee jump without a rope, freerunning is the 'art of movement', an new art form and a complet way of life. Freerunners view the everyday and the street specifically as funiture to move from, and they specifically move through urban landscapes. They leap from roof to roof, climb up walls, scales trees and lampposts and drop from great heights with the use of no equipment apart from themselves. Baraitser states that there are some rules in freerunning. Individuals must always go forward and never back. In addition the aim is to move as elegantly as possible and to create continous fluid movement.
Freerunning has already become greatly popular within the everyday, Channel 4 created a film Jump Londonn (2003) where freerunners tackled famous London landmarks such as the Albert Hall and the National Theatre.
Baraitser's study observes and mother and her children (in a buggy) as they travel using the London Underground and tackle everyday problems by travelling with a great load. She suggests that the women "appears to be the antithesis of the freerunner. Though her body is encumbered she too wishes to 'run;, to make a series of feline fluid movements flowing into one another that allow her to navigate the urban langscape" (Stuff, 2006) The article acknowledges the difficulties of travel the women faces that many of us take for granted, as we are not burdened by a buggy, children and other everyday nessecities. An observation of simply travelling done a flight of stairs to the tube creates numerous problems.
Baraitser suggests that there are more similarities between the mother and her children and freerunners than appear at first glance. Namely that both sets of individuals face the same boundaries, both have to make the same judgements about the mode of travel, and both understand their own capacities and limits. the boundaries make the individuals re-negotiate their relationship with sets of objects. Ones that appears so often within our everyday and become habitual too us, for example a set of stairs, a stranger, and doorway. The difference between both sets of individuals is that the mother may not be consciously aware of her navigation on a "moment-to-moment basis".
Whose everyday:
A woman and her children
Freerunners/traceurs/parkour.
Who is the investigator?
Freerunners/Lisa Baraitser.
Why is the investigation important?
Baraitser investigates the everyday in a 'new way', there are no boundaries for the freerunners. The comparison made between the woman and her children and the freerunners show that their concept of 'freerunning' occurs in everyday life unconsciously.
What are the most significant features of this everyday?
There are no constraints, and freerunners over come 'everyday' barriers. Most significately it is the attitude of the mother-she has to overcome these barriers, freerunners choose to overcome the barriers.
Methods of documenting the everyday
Observation and routing.
The freerunners plot a route and go against the grain of the norm.
