Presentation based on experiences of using walking interviews in the Connected Lives project, part of Real Life Methods

Clark, Andrew

Emmel, Nick

National Centre for Research Methods: NCRM EPrints Repository

1Walking interviews: more than walking and talking?Andrew Clark and Nick EmmelESRC National Centre for Research Methods: Real Life MethodsReal Life MethodsPart of the ESRC National Centre for Research MethodsConnected Lives• Investigating networks, neighbourhoods and communities• Inner city neighbourhood case-study: a putative geographical area with a socially, economically, and culturally diverse population• Walking interviews, participatory social mapping and day-diaries used alongside quantitative and qualitative data2“Show us around your neighbourhood”N=29 of which 2 are car journeys and 6 are with ‘key-informants’Shortest c. 15minutes; longest 5 hoursThe significance of route• The intimate geographies of location (e.g. places of belonging, places of avoidance)• The importance of ‘neighbourhood infrastructure’ (e.g. shops, pubs, community centres etc.) • The local geographies of social networks (e.g. friends houses, neighbours, acquaintances and familiar strangers)3The significance of place• Places as relational• Places as networked– The significance of getting lost• Places as biographical– A stimulus for stories about lives in placeM1: This place here [a café], I’ve heard stories about itAC: What sort of stories?M1: Er, that it’s basically a drugs’ havenF1: I got married thereAC: Oh rightF1: And my mum had er, when it were all houses, a boarding house and my grandma had a boarding housePlaces as practices• The place of everyday practices– Embodied practices (e.g. walking through or appearing in place)– Social practices (e.g. bumping into friends)– Material practices (e.g. physical and institutional infrastructures)• The place of extraordinary events– The significance of time, memory and geography4F2: [This] is where the riots actually started, well they actually started from t’middleo’ road down here.  So I don’t know if you want to start from t’middle o’road.  Are we going to go from where H~ got its notorious name, do you want to go from here?AC: OkF2: So like from [19]95 from the riots we kind of got labelled this bad area and things changed.The place of extraordinary eventsSome issues about method• Weather matters• Anonymity matters– Some participants are reluctant to be seen with a university researcher• Participation matters – We seek to give participants the opportunity to control the research encounter, but some do not want this responsibility.5Conclusion• Our experiences using this method suggest it can reveal how people interact materially, socially, and through embodied practices to create, maintain, and dissemble their networks, neighbourhoods, and communities.

Participatory walking interviews: More than walking and talking?

https://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/id/eprint/1103/1/walking-interviews-march08.pdf

Participatory walking interviews: More than walking and talking?

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