Walking Across Disciplines From Ethnography to Arts Practice

This article was downloaded by: On: 13 February 2011 Access details: Access Details: Free Access Publisher Routledge InformaLtd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 3741 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Visual Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713689928 Walking across disciplines: from ethnography to arts practice Sarah Pink; Phil Hubbard; Maggie O'Neill; Alan Radley Online publication date: 22 March 2010 To cite this Article Pink, Sarah , Hubbard, Phil , O'Neill, Maggie and Radley, Alan(2010) 'Walking across disciplines: from ethnography to arts practice', Visual Studies, 25: 1, 1 — 7 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14725861003606670 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725861003606670 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. in recent years it has become increasingly central as a means of both creating new embodied ways of knowing and producing scholarly narrative.Visual Studies.info. Her books include Doing Visual Ethnography (2007 [2001]). critical and feminist theory. the Carillon tower in Loughborough. Maggie has a long-standing interest in and engagement with collaborating with artists through ethnographic research (specifically biographical narrative research). The Future of Visual Anthropology (2006). saunter. Her concept of ethnomimesis captures the process of and relationship between arts-based practice and ethnographic research. ISSN 1472–586X printed/ISSN 1472–5878 online/10/010001-7 © 2010 International Visual Sociology Association DOI: 10. these activities were designed to encourage local participants to experience their town afresh. These contributions tell us something about walking arts practice. Thinking Geographically (2002) and Key Thinkers on Space and Place (2008).makingtheconnections. including use of soundwalks. capturing both the visual and the performative nature of their walks. seeing.co. Vol. Tim Brennan. organised by RADAR. 1. urban choreography and online gaming. Maggie O’Neill is Reader in Criminology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University. His research has involved using visual methods to study social experience in material contexts.1 Over this otherwise predictably damp English weekend. PHIL HUBBARD. Tim Brennan’s contribution documents his artistic methodology of manipulating the guided walk using the ‘Luddite Manoeuvre’ he performed at ROAM. Visual Interventions. Claire Blundell Jones. renewed methodologies for socio-cultural research – including arts-based methodologies (ethno-mimesis). Her work usually involves the use of visual methods and media. discursive performance. which was the starting point for this collection. The Sage Companion of the City (2007). www. Lottie Child takes us on her journey as a ‘street trainer’ in Loughborough with local inhabitants Camilla. and praxis through participatory action research (PAR). He is interested in urban theory and the geographies of everyday life. arts practice and the physical and phenomenological realities of Loughborough. Five of the artists who contributed to ROAM have produced work for this special issue. shuffled and stalked across the town of Loughborough in the East Midlands. ed. and http://www. Loughborough University’s Arts Programme. Mark Gwynne Jones. and has a particular focus on the geographies of sexuality. Street training involves participants in the ‘perpetual making of public space’. participatory action research and participatory arts. Through a variety of different manoeuvres and tactics. stroll with the tumbleweed encourages observers to glocally re-imagine the local environment through the imagined landscape of the Wild West.guardian. and Tamara Ashley and Simone Kenyon – led a series of walking events in which participants wandered. MAGGIE O’NEILL and ALAN RADLEY Guest Editors’ Introduction While walking has long been implicated in ethnography and arts practice. UK. street theatre. and the need to change the way we look at things. including hospital wards and urban spaces used by homeless people. INTRODUCTION Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 In March 2008. and narration (of quotes from historical and philosophical texts) along a guided walk (‘Manoeuvre’) that also encourages performative interventions from participants (see also Myers’ article in this issue.beyondbordersuk. It raises a series of questions inspired by the walking/arts event. historical re-enactment. The outcomes of recent research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) with Phil Hubbard and four community arts organisations can be accessed online at: www. Greg.1080/14725861003606670 . Claire Blundell Jones’ performative walk. April 2010 Guest Editors’ Introduction RVST Walking across disciplines: from ethnography to arts practice SARAH PINK. Phil Hubbard is Professor of Urban Social Geography at Loughborough University. She is particularly interested in areas that involve crossing disciplinary boundaries and the development of applied and public scholarship. His books include Key Ideas in Geography: The City (2006).com. seven artists and artist-groups – Active Ingredient. For participants less familiar with Loughborough. The RADAR event created a series of connections between our own interests as academics working in the town’s university. hiked. (2007) and Doing Sensory Ethnography (2009). It also Sarah Pink is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. 25. Mark Gwynne Jones takes us ‘Off the beaten track …’ in a performance walk and a poem inspired by a Lewis Carroll poem. No. Lottie Child. This introduction explores this cross-disciplinary coalescence of interest in peripatetic practice. hearing and feeling it in new ways. Kev and John-Mark. Tamara Ashley and Simone Kenyon give us a glimpse into their celebration of the act of walking (in the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University and the Pennine Way).uk/society/gallery/2009/jan/13/sense-of-belonging-exhibition. as well as by the articles and works published in this special issue. and Pink 2009). the ROAM walking arts weekend was held in Loughborough. the artworks also offered routes towards corporeal ways of knowing the town that rendered it significant in ways far beyond the maps we used to find its starting point in the museum. Brennan’s ‘Manoeuvre’ is a ‘montage’ of walking. Her interdisciplinary research career has developed at the intersections of cultural. Alan Radley is Professor of Social Psychology at Loughborough University. Duncan Speakman. Ingold and Lee Vergunst (2008) trace discussions of walking as a topic for comparative study in the work of Marcel Mauss (1934[1979]) and in Pierre Bourdieu’s work on habitus (1997). In the final section of this introduction we discuss the nature and crossovers of these articles and reflections on practice. Tellingly. geography. with RADAR. cultural criminology. Each of the four speakers (the walking artist Hamish Fulton. de Certeau’s most cited essay on practices of walking situates these in the urban. It includes the work of artists and scholars across anthropology. we sought to offer opportunities for reflection and to identify further synergies between this and the ROAM programme. David Crouch – the artist – is a professor of cultural geography whose research interests intersect with our own. discussed in Pink 2007). parkour. as noted by Lee and Ingold (2006). is the influence of Michel de Certeau’s (1984) understanding of walking as a practice of everyday life. and his Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 . images or experiences in isolation from the other senses and narratives. but also informs the work of walking artists in a variety of different ways. The Walk. Given the difficulty of considering visual practices. which is not only evident as a reference point for many academic contributions to contemporary discussions of walking (e. Pink 2007. and the artist and anthropologist Misha Myers) had been invited to Loughborough to spend the weekend engaging with the art performed that weekend. Lee and Ingold 2006. practices of cruising. Edensor 2008). anthropologist Andrew Irving. The city is thus a key setting in which walking as practice has been explored. or is comprehensible through. We hence suggest that a focus on walking and movement offers one way to situate the visual within social. Gray 2003. numerous Marxist humanists picked up the mantle of Walter Benjamin and used walking as the pivot around which they hinged numerous observations on the alienated nature of everyday life: commentators as varied as Henri Lefebvre. The ghost of Benjamin. and that of Colin Turnbull (1961.g. Working in rather different traditions of urban ethnography. with the urban choreographies of the ‘sidewalk ballet’. noting that the ‘thicks and thins’ of the urban text are made by practitioners through acts of walking. urban orienteering. town trails and urban dérives all suggesting different ways of exploring how the city is made and remade tactically. the image that appears on the front cover. Jane Jacobs’ (1961) Life and Death of Great American Cities and Elijah Anderson’s (1991) Streetwise. ‘from below’ (see Hubbard 2006). scholarly and artistic practice. sociology. Discussions of how walking/moving with others has led to. taking up the theme of the journal – Visual Studies – we consider the implications of this focus on walking in ethnography and in art for ‘visual’ studies. but it has been our intention to draw together the key components of these combined events to make evident the connections and synergies that can emerge through such engagements. perhaps. ethnographic insights rooted in fieldwork experience can also be found in many twentieth-century ethnographies. the geographer Tim Edensor. likewise draws together art and scholarship. William Foote Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner Society. For example. In the next section of this introduction we map out something of the interdisciplinary field of scholarly practice in which this work is located by critically reviewing existing theoretical and methodological treatments of walking in a set of key ‘ethnographic’ disciplines – anthropology. WALKING ACROSS ETHNOGRAPHIC DISCIPLINES References to walking were not uncommon in theoretical and ethnographic literatures of the twentieth century. Likewise a good number of the forty or so people who attended the seminar had come to Loughborough to spend the weekend engaging with the art in the town. sociology and human geography – before noting the centrality of walking in post-disciplinary endeavours. In this special issue we cannot hope to reproduce the atmosphere of the seminar nor the actual experience of art. Therefore the composition of this special issue is intentionally interdisciplinary. While their presentations were focused on their own practice and research. Most notable. Indeed. as well as some infamous works more broad in outlook but hinged around the street or sidewalk as site of encounter – for example. and social psychology. consideration of the relation between the visual and the haptic experiences of walking remains a vitally important question. psychogeographical peregrinations. The most obvious examples here include the work of Clifford Geertz. and Guy Debord have incorporated ruminations on the pedestrian experience into their critical accounts of contemporary urbanism. The walking weekend was followed by a one-day seminar hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University. it encourages us to recognise the visual as always embedded in the multisensoriality and movement that is integral to the practice and experience of everyday life: what Patterson (2009) terms the interplay of the visceral and visual. Then. Marshall Berman. on the university campus. flaneurialism.2 Guest Editors’ Introduction presented an exciting opportunity to bring together artists and scholars who use walking and in some cases visual and/or audio media as part of their practice. As we have outlined above. as various existing examples that combine walking. however. Pink 2007. there has been a proliferation of walking methods not only in ethnography. There is a danger that people who take that perspective would think of walking as ethnographic practice that involves just another novel method or attempted short cut to understanding other people’s everyday experiences. but also where new approaches to ethnographic methodologies have come to the fore – generating literatures that reflect on and develop contemporary and innovative forms of ethnographic practice.Guest Editors’ Introduction 3 search for the sacred in the ruins of the city. and also Irving. As the contributions to this issue show. Patrick Keiller and Patrick Wright. new themes in methodological appreciation usually emerge as part of precise configurations of theoretical. ARTWALKS: THE VISCERAL IN THE VISUAL As we noted above. there are many ways in which Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 . see also Irving in this issue). with the connections between fieldwork and walking in the field beginning to be usefully teased out. Indeed. Tolia Kelly 2007. geo-referencing and mapping that can be used to ‘capture’ walking. But we would argue otherwise. doing ethnographic research – see Ingold and Lee Vergunst 2008. perhaps shaped by recognition of the range of new methodologies of data recording. among other notables. and Housley argue for a return to a classic ethnography in a context where they see ethnography as becoming ‘fragmented’ through the development of and a focus on specific types of method and ‘data’ (2007. it often forms part of a complex of research practices (e. but it is in itself a form of engagement integral to our perception of an environment. The case of the ‘rise of walking’ in social sciences and humanities agendas is no exception. including in both policy and knowledge transfer contexts (see O’Neill and Hubbard in this issue). also features in the pseudo-academic attempts to evoke the character of the city associated with the psychogeographically tainted ramblings of Iain Sinclair. gone largely unnoticed that walking is not unusual in ethnographic or documentary film (see Pink 2007. 33). Indeed. Here the prominence of notions of movement. knowing. Delamont. long-term engagement in the everyday life of other people as it is lived over long periods of time is not possible due to time limitations or because of the nature – and/or affective intensity – of the experiences the ethnographer is trying to understand. Kusenbach’s (2003) espousal of the collective walk as the means to explore ‘street phenomenology’. It has also. Edmund White. takes the filmmakers on around his compound (discussed by Jhala 2007. although a series of other works in this area also stand out – including Katrín Lund’s (2006. Myers 2006). However. it seems reasonable to understand walking in filmic representations as a means by which viewers might be invited to engage with film via movement forward through an environment rather than merely by watching/observing from a distance (Pink 2009). until recently. this issue) – an outstanding example being a walk that Lorang. Butler 2006. walking with others or asking others to represent their own experiences through walking offers an inspiring route to understanding. Pink 2007. 2008. the protagonist of David and Judith MacDougall’s Lorang’s Way (1979). There are current debates about what constitutes ‘proper’ ethnography (see Pink 2009. It also need not be a method that is used in isolation. flow and place in contemporary social theory (albeit in different forms in different academic disciplines). 2008) work in Scotland and Spain. ethnography and arts or visual practice demonstrate. In some research contexts. Peter Ackroyd. methodological and empirical convergence and openness. along with substantive interests in mobility and movement – in their multiple manifestations – go some way towards explaining this. Wylie’s (2005) traverse of the South West Coastal Path. Of particular significance here is the recognition that walking is (drawing from the work of Ingold 2000.g.g. 9). We cannot but learn and come to know in new ways as we walk. For instance Atkinson. 2007. Pink 2007). making walking an ideal means of learning as an ethnographer (i. It has. been much more recently that walking has been conceived as a methodological concern within the context of discussions of ethnographic practice. The contemporary interest in walking as an ethnographic method has developed in a climate not only where there have been new theoretical and substantive interests in movement. but also in arts practice. and Andrew Irving’s explorations of walking and visual practices as a route to understanding other people’s interior dialogues (Irving 2007. While a thorough review of walking as a strategy in filming and representing everyday walking remains to be undertaken. and also in this issue). walking is well established in ethnographic practice. Irving 2007). If we are to identify a ‘landmark’ work in this area it would be Lee and Ingold’s (2006) essay ‘Fieldwork on Foot’. Stuart Home. It is also a powerful way of communicating about experiences and ways of knowing across cultural divides (e. 2008) not simply something we do to get from one place to another.e. 2009). Tim Brennan shows how our understandings of urban histories and realities can be shaped on a range of different corporeal and cognitive levels which become interwoven as we walk and experience (see Pink 2009 for a longer discussion of this). which provides a route for its wider dissemination.g. Tim Edensor. some of the walking art we experienced during the ROAM weekend in Loughborough was produced to be experienced only through walking. highlighting those that are particularly relevant to this issue. be like? WALKING AND VISUAL STUDIES In recent literatures across a variety of academic disciplines the visual is now being re-situated as an element of the multisensoriality of everyday contexts (e. What. the ROAM event and seminar in Loughborough sought to engender further connections between walking. The writing of other academic contributors in this issue is likewise never far from discussing the work of walking artists. ethnography and arts practice.2 Here we note some of the key intersections that are emerging as crossovers between academic and arts practice increase. Pink 2009). Alerting us to the different strictures that control our walking. would a conference in which the presentations were precisely walked. Rather. finds much inspiration from the work of Long. including. For example. it needs to be conceptualised as serving to situate the ‘visual’ in visual studies as always contextualised through the multisensoriality and mobility that characterise everyday experience. in the sense that it focuses attention on the kinaesthetic. The introductions to the work of the participating artists presented here also invite readers – especially those who might be academics dissatisfied with conventional textbased media – to consider new ways of communicating ethnographic experience. of course. to evoke the rhythms of the city through different modes of ambulatory art. by combining a range of different performative and communicative media in his walks. Long’s work is discussed further by Tim Edensor in this issue. inspired by the practice of Misha Myers. The image shows a line that Long has made by walking on grass (Ingold 2007. in his contribution to this special issue he represents experiences of walking through an artwork that engages with written text. As an embodied. we should not see this contemporary focus on walking as a challenge to the idea of ‘visual’ studies. Looking at the work presented here from another perspective. Francis Alys and Jeremy Deller and from their ability. but also that it might be presented as public scholarship that has social and cultural impact. activity. 43). In contrast.4 Guest Editors’ Introduction relationships between walking and arts practice have been and continue to be forged. in different ways. in our contemporary context it becomes increasingly important not only that academic work should engage with public issues.com/). In addition to his many exhibitions. This does not render the idea of ‘visual studies’ irrelevant. For example. Such work has provided inspiration for scholars seeking new ways to make their work accessible to broader audiences (whether policy makers or simply a general public). Indeed. A first point to note is how the work of very established walking artists – e. A consideration of walking in arts practice and in (visual) ethnography brings to the Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 . walking must always be understood as multisensory (see for example contributions to Ingold and Lee Vergunst’s (2008) edited volume. In this special issue this trend is represented in particular in the work of O’Neill and Hubbard. Second. Put more simply. the feel of the ground underfoot.hamish-fulton. Fulton continues to publish his art in book form. and it is here that arts practice offers new routes to communicating beyond conventional boundaries. we might ask.g. The interface between walking. rather than spoken in a closed room. mobile and sensory/felt dimensions of lived experience. and emplaced. ethnography and arts practice invites both perspectives. and we make a particular connection with the work of Hamish Fulton (see http://www. Indeed. Mitchell 2002. these artists flag up very different ways in which walking can offer a tactical remaking of the city. 44). whose own contribution combines arts and academic practice to reflect on the ways walking can be both performative and communicative. it means that when we study visual forms and practices we need to account for the other senses and when we study corporeal practices we need to account for how vision and visual forms are inextricable from these experiences. Fulton’s work is particularly interesting since although he has used a range of media through which to represent the experience of walks. Tim Ingold reproduces Richard Long’s photograph ‘A Line Made by Walking’ (1967) in his Lines: A Brief History (see Ingold 2007. yet it does require us to ask both how the way we approach the visual might be refigured to account for the senses and how visual practices might be implicated in relation to those that have more emphasis on corporeal experience. Edwards and Bhaumik 2009. Hamish Fulton and Richard Long – is being attended to by academics. Patterson 2009). in particular. it is clear that the work of artists who use walking as part of their practice is becoming increasingly influential in academic work. In this special issue we have begun to consider how. Maggie O’Neill and Phil Hubbard also combine descriptive passages with photographs that represent the shared walks.Guest Editors’ Introduction 5 fore the interrelatedness of the visual and the other senses (see Pink 2009). since this is the conventional process of academic discussion. However. debating and theorybuilding (which themselves are of course also multisensory realities). Ingold raises questions about imagery and walking. they are just different facets of the same activity: that of the whole organism in its environment’ (Ingold 2000. sensory... for instance. following Ingold. who is retracing the steps he took on the day of his HIV diagnosis. ‘looking. 51) and the film theorist Laura Marks likewise emphasises that touch and the other senses are impacted in. Andrew Irving invites us into the transcribed verbal narrative of Alberto. it is more appropriate for our purposes here to extend this (as these and other writers also acknowledge) so as not to see the senses as separate modalities (and indeed remembering that the five-sense modern western sensorium is in itself a modern western construct) but. equally have the potential to invite viewers to empathetically imagine how and where that photograph was taken in a sensory moment of movement. Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 . to represent experiences of walking (Pink 2007. an acknowledgement of the relationship between vision and touch is pertinent. this signifies a move away from the idea of privileging vision or visual knowledge. the question of the relationship between walking. However. Regarding the potential of photographs to represent walking. writing. ‘Ways of mind-walking: reading. vision (2000. to achieve some presence we asked the artists themselves to write about their art and include images in ways that would describe and reflect on their practice in order to make it accessible to readers on a different level. to recognise that. As contributors we have used printed text. and in doing so form a bridge between experienced realities as they are known in practice and intellectual ways of knowing. through a material. Indeed. Contributors to this volume approach this in different ways. ethnography and theory together in the same text. The ‘why’ is perhaps easier to express. some of these might be resolved. and Radley et al. Alberto’s narrative is framed but uninterrupted by scholarly musings. Myers. The relationship between walking. One of these is that we need to understand the potential of text that combines still images and written words to represent/describe and comment on the multisensory experience of walking and the affective dimensions of this. and accompanied by sets of photographs taken by Irving during their walk together. listening and touching. the anthropologist Michael Taussig (1993) has emphasised the tactility of vision. To understand the relevance of photographs to these texts. It was not so difficult for us to bring our scholarly reflections to the readers using text. ethnography and arts practice presents a set of opportunities and challenges for the (visual and writing) scholar and artist. a piece of work in which words become art. comparing the latter with reading and writing. 261). therefore are not separate activities. not only by Irving. For example. Likewise. images and the environment is a rich area for analysis and begs further exploration. performed presentations with visual and/or multimedia components – has reinforced the importance of reflecting on how and why we might reduce the phenomenological world of movement and sensoriality to printed text. and see O’Neill and Hubbard. This issue opens with the printed artwork of Hamish Fulton. and instead recognising that the production and viewing of images happen in multisensory environments and are experienced in ways that are embodied and multisensory. and not separated from. bringing such a direct appreciation of the art of the walking artists who participated in the ROAM weekend whose art depended on us being there to experience it was an impossible challenge. 22). in that we have been committed to doing this in a conventional printed journal format – albeit one that allows a significant number of images – has challenged us to find ways to bring art. in combination with photographs and/or video stills. but as texts that suggest or invite routes through which other people’s multisensory ways of knowing in movement might be imagined or imaginable. but this remains an area ripe for investigation. in this issue). Therefore. in practice. the anthropological filmmaker David MacDougall understands seeing and touching as sharing ‘an experiential field’ (1998. In his article in this issue. we can therefore start to understand such images not as visual objectifications of experiential realities. The ‘how’. in that this experience has led to a series of insights that can appropriately be expressed in conventional images and words. The use of printed words and images to represent the experience of walking and its emotional and embodied affects also brings with it theoretical and methodological implications. Why might photography be an appropriate medium for these purposes? One answer lies in existing discussions of the relationship between touching and seeing. and Radley et al. painting’. Therefore we might then suggest that the photographs presented here. Here somehow we get the sense of the anthropologist photographing something of what he is being told and experiencing corporeally. Tim Ingold takes this up. Indeed. the experience of compiling this journal issue from what was initially an arts event – and subsequently a series of four spoken. but also in the articles by O’Neill and Hubbard. social and emotional environment. For example. ART. As this issue demonstrates. a case for considering how walking art and ethnography might have particular potential for intercultural/transcultural communication and. In Myers’ recent work in Plymouth. the work of Kandinsky and the writing of the tenth-century Chinese landscape painter Ching Hao. Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 ‘performative spaces’ are created in the walks with refugees territorially. WALKING. practical and activist engagements through these engagements with the often taken-for-granted practice of everyday life – walking.3 and takes place within the context of a participatory action research (PAR) and arts practice involving four community and participatory arts organisations to explore the senses of belonging negotiated by asylum seekers. refugees or undocumented migrants in the English East Midlands. ethnography and art – both at the seminar and in this issue – our intention has been to explore and make explicit the interdisciplinary achievements and potentials that lie in this field. ETHNOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL INTERVENTION One of the possibilities created by combining art and ethnography is that for ethnographers. which we explore in the next section. The combination of walking. a potential space/dialogic and a methodological space where transformative possibilities and visual and textual products can emerge that may feed into cultural politics and praxis and help processes of social justice via a politics of recognition. thereby countering the misrecognition of the asylum seeker. O’Neill and Hubbard’s use of walking arts practice (see their article in this issue) is indebted to Myers (2006). ethnography and arts practice. the hyphenated. Ingold’s argument is that walking ‘surely involves the exercise of both eye and mind’. O’Neill (2008) suggests that in exploring the in-betweenness. Ingold claims that the structure of art and the structure of the world are the same. rather than merely seen.org) and in the imagination. Can the incorporation of walking-based practices within participatory methodologies have policy impact? And what might be the role of (audio) visual media in this? Some of the contributors to this special issue are working towards answering these questions. SUMMING UP By pulling together walking. and they help participants (as well as audiences) to reflect on transnational experiences in a performative way.homingplace.6 Guest Editors’ Introduction where the material presence of letters on a page can be understood like footprints left in the earth. the painting tradition of Aboriginal peoples. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The creation of this special issue would not have been possible without the funding and practical support of Loughborough University. the university’s Arts Director. methodological. units of which can be transferred from one mind to another). as part of the RADAR programme of events that create . it also has important practical implications. There is. refugee. hybrid space between ethnography and art/walking (ethno-mimesis). digitally (see www. see also Myers’ article in this issue) and O’Neill and Hubbard (see their article in this issue) combine participatory methodologies and walking arts practice. In the walks discussed. The ROAM arts event was led by Nick Slater. By reference to Christian monastic practice. moreover. which would mean that picturing is a matter of images. and. Myers (2006. Myers calls this ‘conversive wayfinding’. not only invites us to engage in questions around the philosophy of perception and knowledge. politics and policy. The apparent insubstantiality of walking and the permanence of art objects can then be seen to be a diversion from the way that walking engages and shapes the world as envisaged. art and ethnography might have in public scholarship. while walking is a meeting with the reality of landscape. we may occupy a third space. demonstrating through their own practice some of the ways in which the combination of walking. art-based. however. for asking what role the combination of walking. following from this. and more specifically in the walks where new arrivals guide policy makers along their map/route from a place they call home to a special place – thus leading to interventions in art. an argument used to undo the idea that images are copies of the world. art and ethnography can constitute forms of social intervention. that very term has the problematic connotation that knowledge is an objective ‘thing’. migrant – the Other. arts practice opens a whole new set of potentials for communicating outside of academic contexts – or what has come to be called ‘knowledge transfer’ (although from the perspective from which we write in this introduction. This makes clear the possibilities that lie in exploring and considering this fundamental human activity from different perspectives and with different intents. interventions take place throughout the entire process of PAR. however. there is a contemporary convergence of theoretical. Contours of culture: Complex ethnography and the ethnography of complexity. 2008. M. Ingold and J. Lines: A brief history.uk/radar/ about_radar/. art and ethnography seminar was generously funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University. 2003. edited by S. MacDougall. M. Bourdieu. B. edited by T. Key concepts in geography: City. T. O’Neill.. D. see http://arts. New York: Simon and Schuster. A. 2006. Progress in Human Geography 33 (6): 766–88.Guest Editors’ Introduction 7 connections between the town and the university.. Street phenomenology: The Go-Along as ethnographic research tool. Princeton. J. NOTES [1] For details of RADAR. We would like to thank Nick and the staff at RADAR for their enthusiasm for the walking. Anthropological Journal 18 (1): 27–42. Ethnography 9 (2): 175–96. Life and death of great American cities. Mimesis and alterity: A particular history of the senses. S. 1943. Street corner society. 1961. Jacobs. edited by S. Open spaces and dwelling places: Being at home on hill farms in the Scottish Borders. Fear in Paradise: The affective registers of the English Lake District landscape re-visited. A walk of art: The potential of the sound walk as practice in cultural geography. 2002. NJ: Princeton University Press. Lanham. 1979. and also to the forty or so participants (some of whom travelled from abroad to attend) for enriching our discussions. Gray. An urban tour. Durham. Tolia-Kelly. Collins. The skin of the film. 2006. 2008. J. 2007. and T. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30: 234–47. 2009. Streetwise: Race. P. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13 (1): 185–208. Ethnography 4: 455–85. Downloaded At: 15:58 13 February 2011 . The practice of everyday life. Visual Studies 22 (3): 240–52. A single day’s walking: Narrating self and landscape on the South West Coast Path. 1998. Environment and Planning A 40: 1796–1810.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0802590. socializing. 2007. Whyte. W. London: Sage. ———. Lee Vergunst. MacDougall. ———. Edwards. [2] A recent example is the ‘All great thoughts are conceived by walking’ (the title is a quote from Nietzsche) workshop held at the Tate Modern in 2007.com/. edited by N. Oxford: Berghahn. Irving. haptic knowledges and sensuous dispositions. Edensor. Oxford: Berg. L. J. Jhala. E. Fieldwork on foot: Perceiving. Coleman and P. Mauss. 67–86. 2009.. which maintains a blog at http://walkart. Senses and Society 2 (3): 329–51. Aldershot: Ashgate. Bindings against boundaries: Entanglements of life in an open world. M. Listen to the sound of time: Walking with saints in an Andalusian village. Ingold. Walking with video. 1984. Trans. 2006. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2000. In The visual culture reader. London: Routledge. and W. 2009. place and context in anthropology. Bhaumik. Lawrence-Zuniga. ———. In Fieldwork on foot. to our four speakers. Walking through ruins. ———. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Doing sensory ethnography. C. In Locating the field: Space. 2000.lboro. Ingold. Taussig. Berkeley: University of California Press. Showing seeing: A critique of visual culture. M. Mitchell. The walking. 2008. eds. Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot. Ingold. Oxford: Blackwell. Along the way: Situation-responsive participation and education. MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Social and Cultural Geography 7 (6): 889–908. P. http:// nbnresolving. T. D. We are grateful to the university for supporting this event. class and change in an urban community. E. Butler. Sociology and psychology: Essays. edited by S. Outline of a theory of practice. 1997. NC and London: Duke University Press. J.. Oxford: Berg. Low and D. ———. Brewster. 2007. S. In The anthropology of space and place: Locating culture. Pink.. and J. M. 2005. 2008. Ethnography.ac. P. W. 2006. MacDougall. Lee. [3] The project is inspired by and replicates Myers’ walks around Plymouth. Lee Vergunst. dir. In Ways of walking: Ethnography and practice on foot. J. Atkinson. 2007. REFERENCES Anderson. 1991. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. M. Hubbard. 2006. F. J. art and ethnography theme and for their help and support for the seminar. Marks. 2007.wordpress. 2007. art and death. Haptic geographies: Ethnography. K. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung [Forum: Qualitative Social Research] 9 (2): Article 59. 1979. Turnbull. The forest people. London: Routledge. Wylie. Transcultural cinema. P. Delamont. T. Seeing in motion and the touching eye: Walking over Scotland’s mountains. 2003. Distributed in the UK by the Royal Anthropological Institute. Nice. Lund. 2008. M. 1993. Aldershot: Ashgate.. Chicago: Chicago University Press. routing. edited by Tim Ingold and Jo Vergunst. New York: Random House. London: Routledge. T. Myers. Lorang’s Way. In Visual interventions: Applied visual anthropology. 1961. and J. D. International Journal of the Arts in Society 1 (2): 1–6. Housley. Patterson. The perception of the environment. and K. Mirzeoff. Trans. T. 2nd ed. Emergency agents: A birthing of incipient applied visual anthropology in the ‘media invisible’ villages of Western India. Pink. Visual sense: A cultural reader. Transnational refugees: The transformative role of art? [53 paragraphs]. London: Routledge. de Certeau. 2008. R. London: Routledge. eds. Kusenbach. M.