Walking - by Charlotte Bates & Emma Jackson (Paperback)

About the Book

The sociologists and writers in this collection put on their boots and take to the streets to craft their work in lively, mobile and sensuous ways. Together, their work explores the significance of studying social life on foot, and shows what can be gained from thinking on the move.

Book Synopsis

Going for a walk with twenty sociologists, this collection is a playful rendition of the social worlds that we move in and through. From city streets to coastlines, along riverbanks and through street markets, alone and together, each walk blurs descriptive, poetic and theoretical observations and insights to reveal the worlds we live in afresh. Attending to the politics and poetics of walking and place, the collection challenges the taken for granted privileges of mobility, highlights the ways in which walking is embodied and situated, and shows how social life unfolds in and through spaces. Learning on and from the streets, tracing footprints, and attending to rhythms, these walks map sociological thought, and carve new paths in the terrain of the sociological imagination.

From the Back Cover

'Engaging and illuminating at once, Walking holds the social, historical, political, and emancipatory possibilities of a stroll close. These are walks beyond the trope of the Romantic figure - in the city, down back alleys, through questions of access and activism. A much-needed contribution to our literatures of place.'
--Jessica J. Lee, author and environmental historian

'This innovative "field guide" offers a wonderful invitation to pay attention to and analyse our social worlds by engaging the peripatetic senses, the sensory affordances and creative understandings of the messy intersections of bodies, space, place, landscape, rhythms, sound, time and the more than human through a critical sociological lens by walking with contemporary sociologists! A book to read, share and savour! The power of sociological storytelling at its very best!'
--Maggie O'Neill, University College Cork

Drawing on and contributing to a wide interest in walking across the creative arts, humanities and social sciences, the sociologists and writers in this collection put on their boots and take to the streets to craft their work in lively, mobile and sensuous ways. Together, their work explores the significance of studying social life on foot and shows what can be gained from thinking on the move.

Interweaving key sociological ideas with walking concepts and methods, the collection opens new possibilities for both learning about and representing social life. By going for a walk, each essay develops an openness to the world around us and cultivates new ways of writing about people and places. At the same time, the book offers a distinctively sociological perspective. Each unique walk is an encounter with key sociological ideas, showing that sociology is for everyone and can be found everywhere, even in the most unexpected places.

Review Quotes

'This innovative "field guide" offers a wonderful invitation to pay attention to and analyse our social worlds by engaging the peripatetic senses, the sensory affordances and creative understandings of the messy intersections of bodies, space, place, landscape, rhythms, sound, time and the more than human through a critical sociological lens by walking with contemporary sociologists! A book to read, share and savour! The power of sociological storytelling at its very best!'
--Maggie O'Neill, University College Cork

'This collection of walks tackles big social issues in a lyrical and reflective manner showcasing the creativity of movement as methodology. Read this book and be inspired to get walking and understand spaces and places differently.'
--Ruth Penfold-Mounce, University of York

'Engaging and illuminating at once, Walking holds the social, historical, political, and emancipatory possibilities of a stroll close. These are walks beyond the trope of the Romantic figure - in the city, down back alleys, through questions of access and activism. A much-needed contribution to our literatures of place.'
--Jessica J. Lee, author and environmental historian

'Written as a sociological field guide, each contribution takes the reader on a walk, opening up attentiveness to embodied, situated spaces and connections between the local and global, pasts, presents and futures. This wonderful book will be invaluable to those researching, teaching and thinking with space, movement and everyday lives.'
--Rebecca Coleman, University of Bristol

'Richly textured, insightful and fascinating. Contributors share walks crossing both time and space, illuminating issues that resonate far beyond each writer's path. We travel along supply chains, rivers and disused railway lines, accompanied by dogs, songbirds, comedians and key social theorists. Subjects explored include complex histories and potential futures, regeneration, inequality, technology, racism, environmental injustices and more, alongside networks of care, community solidarity and everyday resistance. Power is revealed, disrupted and questioned with each footstep. Expertly crafted, each essay balances expertise with accessibility and is deeply engaging. Thoughtful prompts encourage the reader to embark on their own mobile research project. An essential guide for curious scholars across many fields--and for anyone who wants to understand the value of walking as, with, and in social research.'
--Morag Rose, author of The Feminist Art of Walking

'A consistently unusual, thoughtful and original set of essays, full of gimlet-eyed observations and rich sociological insights. Taken together, they offer a compellingly diverse yet surprisingly unified account of walking - not walking as mere traversal of space but as a form of knowing, encountering, testing, clarifying, probing and above all listening to the complexity of places. Deeply informed, sociologically grounded, and politically astute, the essays also offer a glimpse of what walking, at its best, might be - a deeply intimate yet non-possessive mode of being in the world.'
--Michael Malay, author of Late Light

About the Author

Charlotte Bates is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Cardiff University
Emma Jackson is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at LSE