Walking as an Ethnographic Method: Sensory Memories and Intimacy of Place in a Post-socialist Czech Neighbourhood ( breakout presentation )

Abstract

Background Situated in a coal-rich region of the Czech Republic, the city of Ostrava, in the period between 1948 and 1989, was branded by socialist authorities as the country's 'industrial heart' and as a showcase of progressive urban living. The importance of architecture in organizing public life was well understood by socialist urban planners, who designed Ostrava's residential neighbourhoods with the intent to help to create ideal socialist citizens. Ostrava today is a depopulated and economically depressed city, but many of the socialist-designed spaces remain. Aim My research examines the tension between original design and use in Ostrava's socialist-designed neighbourhoods. Following the premise that how people interact with the urban spaces they inhabit is inextricably intertwined with each individual's specific movements, memories, affective experiences, interactions with others, as well as with the materiality of the spaces themselves, I was especially interested in local residents' visceral experiences of inhabiting spaces originally designed to promote socialist progress. Method In addition to semi-structured sit-down interviews, I conducted walk-along interviews with some of my 50 informants as part of an 18-month ethnographic study in Ostrava. The walk-along interviews were video recorded, so that it was possible to later analyze how the informants moved through their environment and what gestures they used when interacting with their surroundings. Results Most long-term residents had developed intimate relationships with their neighbourhood and paid little attention to the ideological intentions behind the design. Incorporating walking with sit-down interviews enabled me to collect richer data that went beyond the verbal and the visual by combining both. The walk-along gave access to aspects of the lived experience harder to address in a standard interview, such as spatial practices, locally situated biographies, and sensory memories. Conclusions Ostrava's socialist-designed spaces are used and experienced in ways that often contradict the original intents of the planners. Sensory experiences play an important role in people's interaction with the built environment, and these embodied interactions contribute to how public spaces are co-constructed, appropriated, and made familiar. Walking can be an effective method in examining the intimate relationship between people and built space.