Walking borders, risk and belonging: the walking interview as biographical method and doing mobility justice

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper engages with the long history of work in Mobilities research and makes a contribution from a different angle, by introducing and discussing creative applications of biographical research using the walking interview as biographical method (WIBM), that captures the sensory, embodied, affective aspects of lived lives and lived experiences, the intersecting oppressions and possibilities for praxis, focusing upon research on borders, risk and belonging, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It argues that applying the WIBM opens up possibilities for doing “mobility justice”, through a relational, cultural and socio-spatial examination and analysis of lived lives, in the context of geo-political, cultural worlds (and scales). In doing so, the paper examines, through two short examples, creative applications of walking as an arts-based practice through the walking interview as biographical method (WIBM) to contribute to doing “mobility justice” as a transdisciplinary practice, as an “ethical and just” process and practice. Methodologically, the paper opens a space for dialogue on the transformative role of walking, listening as partial understanding, (partial understanding because although incredibly powerful, the biographical method can never give us total knowledge/understanding of the lives of others and this is not its aim) “resonance” and the potential for solidarity, as part of an ethics of listening, including possible impact on policy and practice, especially in diverse research and social contexts.