Walking as Embodied Research

Drift, Pause, Indirection

Christian Ernsten, Nick Shepherd

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781032010229
• eBook ISBN: 9781040144190
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

In recent years, walking has emerged as a methodological tool and as a conceptually exciting point of departure across a range of disciplines and practices. This volume explores walking as a form of embodied research practice that offers fresh perspectives on key contemporary debates and areas of interest. These include the climate emergency and the debate around the Anthropocene, decolonial thinking and the struggle for social justice, feminist and queer walking methodologies, and the notion of the 'infraordinary' and practices of everyday life. Contributions to this volume are by scholars, artists and practitioners drawn from a wide range of disciplines and fields, and from across the Global South and North. An overarching theme of the volume is the manner in which the act of walking brings the body into presence as a material part of the research process, and the forms of attentiveness that this encourages. Another theme is the intimate connection between the act of walking and the act of writing. As familiar landscapes change under the weight of Anthropogenic environmental change, walking becomes an act of witnessing and a spur to action. Rather than being a singular activity, walking itself is understood as a socially, economically and politically constructed and contested act. This volume will serve as a source of inspiration to readers from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences who are interested in walking methodologies and in new and sustainable research practices.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction: Walking as embodied research in emergent Anthropocene landscapes
• Part I Multisensory walking: ‘Deep mapping’ and ‘sounding places’
• Part II Walking and the ‘arts of noticing’: ‘Social trackways’ and ‘storied landscapes’
• Part III Critical walking methodologies: Feminist and queer walking, decolonial walking
• Part IV Activist walking and walking for academics
• Part V The art of getting lost: ‘Homo Eclecticus’ and the Wadden Sea polder
• Part VI Flanerie reinterpreted: Walking and drawing, walk like a designer
• Part VII Walking through time: Coloniality and multi-temporality on the Liesbeeck River and the Qhapaq Ñan
• Part VIII Walking and writing: Mount Sáos and the Rižana River
• Part IX Lockdown walking: ‘Becoming attentive’, the ‘infraordinary’, and memory and mortality in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg
• Index