Participatory Walking Research Articles

‘We are here our hearts are there’: Rurality, belonging and walking together

AbstractThe notion of the rural idyll is well recognised within scholarship. Allied to this imaginary is that rural areas comprise white and homogenous space, with socially conservative values that are exclusionary. In recent decades, studies have identified the arrival of migrants into so‐called New Immigration Destinations, rural spaces with little contemporary experience of immigration, often bringing with them a sense of cosmopolitanism. That research challenges discourses of a fully exclusive rural space, identifying acts of welcoming and hospitality. These acts are often performed in everyday spaces to help create a sense of belonging for new arrivals. Migrants’ sense of belonging to a place is often taken as an indicator of their integration into society. Research has shown that belonging is more than a term used to describe an attachment to place, it also relates to the politics (of belonging) and to notions of identity. We use the specificity of place to examine the intersection of belonging, rurality and ethnicity. Drawing on participatory walks with diverse migrants along Hadrian's Wall in the North of England (celebrating 1900‐year anniversary), we explore the significance of walking as a tool to engage with forced refugees. We do so through the dual perspectives of an art practitioner and a sociologist. The project included collective walks, creative artist lead learning workshops, which lead to a performative protest walk, and a public‐facing art exhibition. The act of walking together blurs boundaries arising from individual status or position, creating a bond from doing a shared activity enabling conversation and friendships to emerge. Through collective walking, we explore the barriers refugees and those in the asylum‐seeking system face in the rural space; and we show how belonging is emotional and relational. Emotional connections can become powerful tools for survival, especially in a cruel immigration system that dehumanises and fails to recognise individuals for who they really are. This is demonstrated in the title of this article ‘We are here our hearts are there’, which comes from one of our participants who deployed the phrase during the artistic performative protest along the Wall.

GPS Embroidery: walking as re-articulation of the written maternalised landscape

ABSTRACT GPS Embroidery is a participatory walking project that responds to the conflation of the ‘good‘ mother with the Romantic English landscape. This commentary considers the politics articulated through walking ‘as a mother‘; exploring GPS as a means to locate the maternal walking artist within maternalised landscapes, give voice to a traditionally silenced subject position, and reposition ongoing Romantic understandings of the singularity of the artist in relation to conceptions of the scribe. Contextualised through their relationship to earlier collaborative feminist practices, I consider GPS Embroideries as a tool with which to redefine ‘selflessness’ in relation to 21st-century mothering and art-making.

Walking the Names: sensing presences and absences in a contested memory landscape

ABSTRACT Bath (UK) is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site. A National Lottery funded Landscape Partnership, Bathscape, seeks to articulate a vision for the city as a Landscape City. Walking the Names (2019–21) was a cycle of slow participatory walks reading the names of those who had died of poverty in the Bath Union Workhouse. The site-specific work took place in the burial ground of the nineteenth-century institution where the dead were buried in unmarked graves. The paper reviews the project in the context of the emergence of uneasy memories and silenced voices in the contested spaces of Bath’s memory landscape. A walking arts process is presented as slow activism, offering a participatory, corporeal, sensory engagement with landscape, power and memory. Drawing on the vision of the Landscape City, reflecting on the city as ‘wounded’, the essay explores a co-creative process of embodied critical re-memorialisation generating contemporary resonances.

Mapping the campus learning landscape

ABSTRACT Despite its practical and symbolic importance, the role of space in higher education remains under-researched. This study develops an understanding of student experience of the campus as a learning landscape. It is based on 28 participatory walking interviews with students, including the hand drawing of a campus map. Participants tended to see learning as about individual study or working alongside others, and rarely mentioned lectures. The choice of space to study was often shaped by convenience, and appeared to be somewhat static and habitual. There was a lack of exploration and only a limited sense of the benefit of fitting the learning task to the space. Yet students felt a sense of ownership and safety on campus. They actively used the characteristics of space to manage their own attention through studying where there were visible cues to study and controlling distraction.

Marginal Walking

I propose the concept of marginal walking as a critically creative framework that nourishes and supports the spaces of the margins as a corrective and a prescription to the stresses of everyday racism, which is difficult to see or describe, but underlies every interaction in everyday public spaces. Drawing from my reflections on the increase of anti-Asian hate during the global pandemic of 2020 to 2021, I investigate how news of racist incidents circulates through digital networks that are entangled with quotidian places such as parks, grocery stores, and public transit. Through such concepts as autocartography and strata-mapping, as explored through my own research-creation practices as well as through participatory walks given by my artist collective Hamilton Perambulatory Unit (HPU), I look at how conscious acts of sensing and intervening in marginal everyday space can contribute to the creation of alternative narratives and knowledge that is necessary for change.

Mobile Caring-Work: Volunteer homelessness outreach on the streets of Brighton & Hove (UK)

ABSTRACT Smith and Hall’s typology of movement and work offers a useful starting point for considering varied aspects of mobile work. However, this typology does not account for the multiple mobilities that comprise voluntary homelessness outreach projects. Soup kitchens, redistribution networks and grassroots outreach are an under-researched area, yet they are complex spaces of care operating within uneven geographies of homelessness. This article argues that informal care practices and conditions are significant in constituting this type of mobile work, which can be usefully contrasted against formal state-commissioned services. It does so through presenting findings from participatory walking interviews undertaken with volunteers providing informal care and support to people living on the streets of Brighton & Hove (UK). It argues that understanding volunteers’ experiences of the relationship between movement and work requires a relational understanding of care, which can be found in geographies of care, namely the care ecology framework of “caringscapes” and “carescapes”. The intersections of mobilities, work and care shaping volunteer outreach challenge existing frameworks. A refined conceptualisation of mobile caring-work is therefore needed, bringing together carescapes and mobilities literatures to open up interpretative possibilities and further advance our understanding of mobile work on the move.

Thinking relationally about built environments and walkability: A study of adult walking behavior in Waterloo, Ontario.

The majority of research on built form and walking has been approached from a deterministic perspective and does not address the theoretical underpinnings of individual walking behaviour. This paper interrogates the relationship between individual walkers and their local environment in order to illuminate how and why people walk through/with space. Specifically, the paper reports on findings from 20 adult participants in Waterloo, Canada who took part in a participatory walking interview accompanied by a member of the research team. A relational interpretation of the data revealed that the relationship between built form and walking extends beyond the correlates of residential density, mix of land uses and street networks. Our findings reveal that there are blurred boundaries between utilitarian and recreational walking behavior, and that walking decisions were influenced by desires to avoid discomfort, seek pleasure, foster social connection and more-than-human encounters. We conclude with the argument that a relational perspective better captures the dynamics between people and place, and ultimately guides practitioners to design built environments that accommodate the realities of human activity in general and walking behavior in particular.

The call of the wild: Investigating the potential for ecoacoustic methods in mapping wilderness areas

The critical importance of wilderness areas (WAs) for biodiversity conservation and human well-being is well established yet mapping criteria on which WA management policies are based take neither into account. Current WA mapping methods are framed in terms of absence of anthropogenic influence, and created using visual satellite data, obviating consideration of the ecological or anthropogenic value of WAs. In this paper we suggest that taking the acoustic environment into account could address this lacuna. We report the first investigation into the potential for ecoacoustic methods to complement existing geophysical approaches. Participatory walks, including in situ questionnaires and ecoacoustic surveys were carried out at points along transects traversing urban-wilderness gradients at four study sites in the Scottish Highlands and French Pyrenees. The relationships between a suite of six acoustic indices (AIs), wilderness classifications and human subjective ratings were examined. We observed significant differences between five out of six AIs tested across wilderness classes, demonstrating significant differences in the soundscape across urban-wild gradients. Strong, significant correlations between AIs, wilderness classes and human perceptions of wildness were observed, although magnitude and direction of correlations varied across sites. Finally, a compound acoustic index is shown to strongly predict mapped wildness classes (up to 95% variance explained MSE 0.22); perceived wilderness and biodiversity are even more strongly predicted. Together these results demonstrate that the acoustic environment varies significantly along urban-wild gradients; AIs reveal details of environmental variation excluded under current methods, and capture key facets of the human experience of wildness. An important next step is to ascertain the ecological and anthropogenic relevance of these differences, and develop new automated acoustic analysis methods suited to mapping the environmental characteristics of WAs. Taken together, our results suggest that future management of WAs could benefit from ecoacoustic methods to take the biosphere and anthroposphere into account.

Learning bodies: Sensory experience in the information commons

Despite the digital shift, university libraries have grown in importance as places where students come to learn. Interest in designing better spaces has led to a flowering of user experience studies. Such research into how students use library space could usefully be informed by the theory of embodied cognition, which emphasises the role of the body in thinking and learning. This study explores students' embodied experience of an information commons building. Data were gathered from participatory walking interviews, where students were asked to give the interviewer a guided tour of the building. Findings revealed the way that particular combinations of sensory experience contributed to particular forms of learning. Very small movements or choices seem to reconfigure space significantly. This research also draws attention to the way that different learning atmospheres are actively constructed. The findings contribute a new perspective on inquiry into the use of library space. The potential implication for libraries is the need for more fine grained analysis of use experience from a sensory perspective and for teachers and learners to more explicitly reflect on the role of the body in learning.

Going on a Field Trip: Critical Geographical Walking Tours and Tactical Media as Urban Praxis in Sydney, Australia

Going on a Field Trip: Critical Geographical Walking Tours and Tactical Media as Urban Praxis in Sydney, Australia

Let Me Walk

Let Me Walk

Prácticas y usos tradicionales de “cerco” y “monte” por los criollos de San Marcos Sierras (Córdoba, Argentina)

Se realiza un aporte actualizado del conocimiento ecológico de los pobladores criollos de San Marcos Sierras sobre prácticas que originaron y mantienen las diferentes unidades de paisaje. A partir de entrevistas semi-estructuradas a informantes clave y caminatas participativas se documentaron los nombres de las unidades manejadas, las especies presentes, sus usos y las prácticas asociadas. Los pobladores reconocen y nombran 2 unidades de paisaje, “cerco” y “monte”. Se registró un total de 57 etnoespecies, 33 citadas para el “cerco” y 55 para el “monte”. Ambas unidades comparten el 54% de las especies que reciben usos y manejos diferentes según la unidad donde se encuentran. Los usos principales que satisfacen las unidades son medicinal, alimentario, leña y forraje. Todas las prácticas y usos fueron enseñadas por el grupo familiar y pertenecen al patrimonio tradicional de los ganaderos. Se hacen necesarios mayores análisis etnoecológicos y ecológicos para comprender las modificaciones en la composición florística del bosque y/o la abundancia de algunas especies leñosas

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival: 23–24 November 2015

In keeping with now-established tradition, Monday was devoted to ‘hcmf// shorts’, a series of free, mostly bite-size concerts. The format is certainly appealing as a way to encounter a diverse range of musical worlds in one go, and it is valuable as a starting-point for those less familiar with new music; every event I attended was packed, and it was encouraging to see students, school groups and families among the attendees. Concerts in different venues were linked by Stephen Chase's participatory walking pieces, which transformed the journeys between them into enjoyable explorations of the changing acoustic environment (thanks to a route that took in tunnels, corridors, traffic and so on).

Activating Imaginative Attention and Creating Observant Moments in the Everyday Through the Art of Walking

Since 2013, I have been conducting a collaborative project on walking together with the actress and tightrope walker Helena Kågemark, where walking has become a means for inquiry-based performing. The purpose of this project was to apply techniques and strategies from the theatre work we pursue in situations outside of the theatre on walking actions in urban spaces – in order to create attention as well as bring forth poetry in situations of everyday life. The project included a wide range of activities and events; from our own explorative walks documented through “walking journals” to participatory walks with others and public presentations of performance acts, performance lectures, discussions, workshops and exhibitions. In our project, we used physical acting techniques to create attention and meaning in situations that emerged in the streets. Our aim was to go beyond the automatic patterns of the everyday when walking through town in order to activate a way to relate to the environment and to create experience that develops both the perception and imagination of the one who walks. We chose to focus on the seemingly small and invisible stories and observations of the everyday, while actively carrying out a psychophysical walk. In this article, I would like to reflect on certain parts of the walking project in order to investigate more closely how we transferred our experience as theatre practitioners to walking activities, and in doing so, activating imaginative attention in order to create observant moments in everyday situations.

You are Hungry: Flâneuring, Edible Mapping and Feeding Imaginations

The idea of growing food in cities, often termed urban agriculture (UA), is rapidly becoming a popular concept linked to ideas of sustainable cities. However, for most residents it is a difficult concept to visualize due to the complexity of the built environment. This research uses 32 participatory walks with 150 local residents around a 25-hectare site within east London to explore reactions to the idea of potential UA landscapes. The starting point for walks was the ‘edible map’. The edible map is a hand-drawn A2 map of the site that filled the many vacant and grassed areas, common to cities, with food growing suggestions. The map was presented to walkers as a provocation to stimulate discussion. The 32 participatory walks produce an initial engagement with the concept of UA and the need for local food systems but also produced a strong critique of urban spatial design and the desire to place-make. Exploring how these desires interact needs to be further understood because potentially the latter could dominate the former. Therefore, institutions that advocate UA need to be mindful of the interactions between spatial engagements and food-growing practices that may compromise the vital need for local food production at the core of the UA concept.

You are Hungry: Flâneuring, Edible Mapping and Feeding Imaginations

The idea of growing food in cities, often termed urban agriculture (UA), is rapidly becoming a popular concept linked to ideas of sustainable cities. However, for most residents it is a difficult concept to visualize due to the complexity of the built environment. This research uses 32 participatory walks with 150 local residents around a 25-hectare site within east London to explore reactions to the idea of potential UA landscapes. The starting point for walks was the ‘edible map’. The edible map is a hand-drawn A2 map of the site that filled the many vacant and grassed areas, common to cities, with food growing suggestions. The map was presented to walkers as a provocation to stimulate discussion. The 32 participatory walks produce an initial engagement with the concept of UA and the need for local food systems but also produced a strong critique of urban spatial design and the desire to place-make. Exploring how these desires interact needs to be further understood because potentially the latter could dominate the former. Therefore, institutions that advocate UA need to be mindful of the interactions between spatial engagements and food-growing practices that may compromise the vital need for local food production at the core of the UA concept.