Squeezing the Distance. Time-Spatial organization and negotiation of families’ everyday mobility in remote rural settings in the Swedish north

This paper focuses on how families living in remote, and highly car dependent, rural areas in Sweden cope with increasing fuel prices. Using qualitative methods including interviews, home visits and mobile methods such as walks and car drives, we show how families are changing how they organize their everyday lives through engaging in a much more rigid planning of family life in time and space, and by using mobile strategies. This involves family negotiations and a shift towards more local activities, clustering activities, collectivizing time-spatial organization and sharing culture to reduce their overall car driving. We argue that families engage in practices of squeezing the distance . Some trips have proven to be non-negotiable, and these are always connected to practices of care. • Car-dependent families in remote rural areas cope with rising fuel prices. • Parents and children engage in active time-spatial organization of everyday mobilities. • Coping strategies include practices of squeezing the distance . • Care trips are prioritized. • Contributes with a perspective focusing on children and youth to the field of relational rurality and remote mobilities.