Recent academic discussion has moved to an appreciation of the complexities of walking and exploring walking in the light of non-representational theory. In 2006 Mimi Sheller and John Urry introduced the concept of a new mobilities paradigm for work in relation to travel (Sheller and Urry 2006), arguing that much of the literature about travel concerned the use of space or the physical environment and transport that focussed on the quickest route to get from A to B. They argued that there needed to be awareness and attention paid to the new sensual geographies, rather than just focussing on documenting travel and how space is traversed by how many numbers. So rather than geographers being concerned with the most efficient transport systems or means of moving through spaces, they should explore space and movement in relation to bodily movement, the experience of familial spaces, neighbourhoods, regions, national cultures, and leisure spaces. Sheller and Urry have been criticised for their assertion that the world seems to be increasingly on the move however. Binnie argues that this has always been the case. Nevertheless he does think it important to consider spatial belonging through movement.
Similarly Jennie Middleton (Middleton 2009 p. 1944) a key writer on walking stresses that much writing on transport policy has focused on the speed of getting to an end point, whereas she is concerned to explore the multiple forms of temporality and spatiality that arise out of pedestrianism. She points out that transport schemes prioritise speed but under the new mobilities paradigm time taken to travel not always by the direct route could be seen as productive in ways other than just saving time or energy. In a study of walking in the city (Middleton 2009, 2010) she found that people experience time and travel differently whilst walking. Walking provided time to think without the stresses of driving or negotiating public transport. Walkers ignored the “rational” i.e. quicker choices in favour of enjoying parks or taking different routes. Walking policies from local or central government relating to cities were often at odds with this way of considering commuting, concentrating more on quantified data. Although she found walking did provide time to think, this was not always the case.
30
Quite often the sights and sounds of the city disrupted that contemplation (Middleton 2010 p 584). What Middleton also writes about is the different physical and sensual engagements with walking e.g. how the type of clothing worn can facilitate or constrict walking movements, or the way some people engaged with mobile technologies whilst walking. What she presents are the many different aspects that contribute to walking on the daily commute, a richer, deeper understanding of what occurs whilst walking.
Anderson writes of how bodily walking can “create a flow of the imagination”
(Anderson 2004 p. 258). He underlines the important consideration for this research of the “constitutive co-ingredience” of place and human identity, in that talking whilst walking can use place to create knowledge and to help to produce new layers of understanding to social science research (ibid. p. 254). The idea of walking and in the context of carrying out research is a way of engaging with space not as an inert
background but something that through movement can create important knowledge about the relationship between people, place and time (ibid. p. 259).
Hannah Macpherson’s work has been developed from non-representational theory, taking on board Hayden Lorimer’s views about how life takes shape and gains expression in shared experience. As she states “landscape is an idea and a material space which has also required considerable re-thinking in the light of non-
representational theory” (Macpherson 2010 p. 6). So landscape is understood as constituted by a number of different elements and is concerned with practice. This was particularly important for her work which was about visually impaired walkers. Her research explored how particular countryside spaces were co-produced by visually impaired visitors, how experiences and understandings emerged from particular
countryside spaces, and social scenarios. This is a key idea for this thesis, in that while my research did not investigate visually impaired in relation to landscape, ideas about co-production of landscape and the multi-sensory experience were very important to the research. Macpherson follows Lorimer in seeking to understand the unfolding and dynamic qualities of body-landscape encounters, such as in his work looking at how landscape can be made known through human and animal movements across it (Lorimer 2006).
31
Macpherson’s own research attempts to show how landscape is constituted in a tactile relationship between sighted guides and walkers, as well as in relationship to the walkers’ embodied pasts and socio-cultural understandings. Engagement with
landscape by the visually impaired is a complex mix of collective dimensions (relating to the walking group and to the relationship between guide and walker), corporeal experience, history and remembrances of visual images, and the socio-cultural context. Thus for example sighted guides would describe sights to the visually impaired walkers who would sometimes imagine what could be seen, sometimes draw on past memories. At the same time there was a collective experience that walking was fun. Thus
Macpherson notes the amount of laughter as a response to the visually impaired
walkers’ relationships with guides and the walking.(Macpherson 2008). This was a way of negotiating relationships. The guides could convey enthusiasm which was then communicated to the walkers. Macpherson also sees in this a harking back to traditions of working class walking practice, where walking was an opportunity for escape and pleasure within a community (Macpherson 2008 p. 1085 ). In addition, she explored the bodily experiences of having to walk over or around rocks, hearing sounds and being alert to smells and touch. The socio-cultural context was found to be
instrumental in the formation of guides’ relationship to landscape in that they would seek out classic scenic routes so they were still guided by sighted norms (Macpherson 2009 p. 1048). Also interesting in relation to this thesis is the acknowledgement of the continuation of concepts of the romantic and picturesque to articulate what landscape was. The way landscape becomes present is due to this complexity of “tangible tactile relationships between sighted guide and walker, as a historical relationship with one’s own embodied past; and as a sociocultural relationship with what is popularly
understood to constitute the landscape” (Macpherson 2009 p. 1052 ). The traditional understandings of rural landscape can be disrupted by the visually impaired because those understandings are often “ocular-centric” (Macpherson 2008 p. 1080 ). Although walkers experienced different senses, the most noticeable aspect of the walk was the sound of laughter and jokes. These were used to break up the walk and as a way of lightening the mood or coping with stereotyping.
For Lorimer academic writing about walking can encompass walks as product of places, the material and physical aspects of place, walking as part of ordinary life, walking as a therapeutic practice, and as an art form (with reference to the work of the artists Richard Long and Hamish Fulton) (Lorimer 2011). For example, in his paper with Lund
32
(Lorimer and Lund 2003) Lorimer argues that Scotland’s mountains are about improvisation and strategies of resistance. Mountains are not inert objects but are animated by the intentions of those who look at them, climb them, live with them and their engagement with the environment.
Lorimer references Wylie’s account of walking the long-distance coastal path where walker and terrain merge into a range of “feelings, emerging amid elemental
phenomena.” (Lorimer 2007) So walking is sometimes subjective, or intersubjective, sometimes non-subjective: a relation of moods, tones, postures and topographies. There is an affectiveness to walking which is about seeing but also becoming. (Wylie 2005b) For Lorimer non-representational theory is still developing but is attempting to deal with the complexities of feelings in relation to walking and landscape; with how these can shift over time or become embedded, and attempting to capture that complexity of knowledge and understanding of the world (Lorimer 2007). The reference to Wylie is important and it was shown in the previous section how Wylie’s research about walking to Glastonbury Tor uncovered new insights and knowledge beyond a static view.
As with Wylie, when one reads Lorimer’s work, the detail of the writing and
experience is revelatory, producing a deep understanding. For example, his work on way-finding (Lorimer and Lund 2003), treating it as a practical rather than purely theoretical experience. Way-finding is not just a cerebral exercise. The map is consulted but the way finder must also read the landscape and is in practice constantly switching between looking at the map and the landscape. The consequence of this is that the walk is split up, disrupted, but these disruptions are also part of the experience. Similarly his work on the reindeer herd is an elaborate exposition of how two people with often different motives and very different cultural backgrounds brought a reindeer herd to Scotland. However, this is not the whole or even the most important part of the study because he also takes into account how the reindeer were suited to and became part of that landscape, and t how relations between the two grew together over the years (Lorimer 2006). The detail is important as is taking time to appreciate the complexities of inter-relations (that can also change over time) between humans and animals and landscape.
Finally, in terms of embodied practices of walking, Tim Edensor’s and Jo Vergunst’s work has also been important. The physical restrictions of hill walking have been
33
described by Jo Vergunst, in terms of how walkers need to take care to avoid trips and slips and the constant adjustment of the body to the terrain (Ingold and Vergunst 2008 p. 115). Similarly Edensor has pointed out in his study of walking in industrial ruins, how that landscape which demands changes in walking to negotiate it carefully (Ingold and Vergunst 2008p. 134), shows how walking can be disruptive and in this way alerts us to the other senses involved in walking like smells and sounds.
Although walking is thought of as a natural activity that frees the mind in the way that the Romantics conceived of walking, in practice there are many conventions about conduct, bodily practices and experience (Edensor 2000 p. 83). Romanticism has left us with an “aestheticized rural space” (Edensor 2000 p. 84) which is an important
consideration for this research in terms of the way that walkers relate to landscape and the countryside. Urban and rural continue to be contrasted, with the rural walker expected to have more freedom and to embody the heroic contemplative Romantic sensibility. However, much walking is a collective practice, taken up with monitoring direction and safety. There is also the discipline of wearing appropriate clothing. Guidebooks or walks’ leaders will point walkers to sites of specific interest, and even walking along paths is a way of directing and restricting movement. Rather than the expected freedom of walking, Edensor argues that there are imposed “normative codes and controls upon walkers and their bodies” (Edensor 2000 p. 100).
Such ideas are important for this thesis in understanding the complexities of walking in relation to landscape and co-production. Although the research does not focus on one particular walk, there is, through the interviews and photo-elicitation, a great deal of detail about the relations of walkers to landscape. The research has much in common with the work of Macpherson where landscape is understood as constituted by different elements and through practices. The research does use photo-elicitation but the findings reveal that the relationships, knowledge and understandings of the landscapes people co-construct are very far from being just “ocular-centric”. The research is informed by an understanding of walking and landscape not as a traversing of ground or being wholly concerned with what can be seen, to a broader ,multi-sensory view of walking, taking into account relationships between people, animals and places, affective
34