2026-11-26 –, Cullen Room
Segregation is usually measured from residential census data, which records where people sleep rather than where they spend their days. Far less is known about segregation in activity spaces: where people travel, whom they visit, and how they distribute their time. Even in cities of unprecedented diversity, everyday movement often follows habitual, stable patterns that may quietly reproduce informal segregation. Integrating human geography with social psychology and the habit-rupture model of intergroup contact (Paolini et al., 2026), this study examines how mobility choices shape stable levels of exposure to diversity in the multicultural setting of Sydney, Australia.
Drawing on a diverse sample of 500 adults from majority and minority backgrounds across five neighbourhood types varying systematically in ethnic diversity, we combine three-month smartphone-based GPS tracking with psychological assessments and egocentric network surveys. We examine whether GPS-derived mobility trajectories across ethnically diverse versus homogeneous urban spaces align with participants' attitudes towards interethnic contact and their everyday intergroup experiences.
Here we present the first results from the GPS tracking component, visualising participants' activity spaces and describing their exposure to neighbourhoods with differing ethnic compositions. We then set out the analytic strategy in prospect. Latent-class analyses will identify typologies linking psychological dispositions and the ethnic composition of participants' personal networks with spatial behaviour, distinguishing habitual from exploratory navigation. Major life events before and during tracking (e.g., relocation, commencing university, job changes) are recorded to separate habitual from rupture periods and to estimate their behavioural consequences for spatial practices.
By situating human mobility within individual dispositions, environmental constraints, habits and life transitions, the study advances understanding of when and why people sustain or depart from segregated routines, illuminating the behavioural foundations of intergroup contact in everyday settings.
Aaron Lauterbach is a third-year PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. Originally from Germany, he holds degrees in psychology and political science from the University of Leipzig, Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Freiburg. His research examines intergroup relations in urban settings, with a particular focus on the motivational and environmental factors that shape whether people seek or avoid encounters across ethnic divides. Before beginning his PhD, Aaron worked at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research and the Berlin Social Science Centre. His current work combines social psychological theory, survey methods, and GPS-derived mobility data, and has been recognised through a Fellowship from the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research.