These Boardwalks Were Made for Bushwalking: Disentangling Grounds, Surfaces, and Walking Experiences

Abstract

What matter is walking ground made of? And how does such ground matter? What is the relationship between walking surfaces and people’s experience of natural landscapes? And how do different ground surfaces enact different meshworks of conservation politics, mobility, and tourism infrastructure? Drawing from nonrepresentational theory and from audiovisual fieldwork conducted in and around Australia’s Cradle Mountain, part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, this article and its accompanying video focus on the materials of walking trails to understand the relations among walking, the built environment, and the sensory and affective experience of place. Arguing that trails and trail surfaces—and boardwalks in particular—serve as influential material conduits for variously contested outdoor recreation mobilities, this article develops the argument that pathways are elements in the world’s transformation of itself.