Walking & talking: making strange encounters within the familiar

Abstract

This article outlines the creation and testing of a practice-as-research methodology that investigates whether introducing playful interventions into a habitual cultural practice – in this case, walking – can heighten an individual’s openness to encountering the strange and unfamiliar, with a view to increasing receptivity for communication and dialogue. The focus on physical movement as trigger for intellectual, psychological or emotional change distinguishes this research from other, more conceptual, ideational strategies. The methodology emerges from a performing arts practice centred around notions of play and draws on contemporary geographical discourses concerned with relationships to place as well as on qualitative methods of inquiry. Creating a series of experiments and interventions to look anew at our surroundings, the research locates itself within practices that are concerned with critically exploring the cultural geographies of cities through performative and affectual approaches. The article examines some of the empirical findings of the research specifically related to negotiating encounters across difference presented by the other articles in this issue.