ABSTRACT
As the various chapters in this volume illustrate, the subject of walking covers a wide range of issues and perspectives. Part I primarily covered cultural and historical context of walking. Bieri (Chapter 2) highlighted the links between walking and contemporary capitalism in the contemporary city, but also noted the historical relationships that contribute to the use and valorisation of urban space. The same patterns of conspicuous consumption noted by Bieri also provide opportunities for oppositional perspectives, an issue raised by Smith in Chapter 3. Smith, building on authors such as Solnit (2000), highlighted that walking is not always a Romantic or a calm practice, but can also used be as an expression for radical ideas (see also Smith 2015). Although some of the observations made by Smith arguably stand in contrast to some of the findings of Reiser and Jansen-Meinen (Chapter 6), who highlighted the way that walking was utilised for more reactionary purposes in Germany in the inter-war period. Nevertheless, it is interesting that they also regarded changes in German walking culture as expressive of the changing nature of political systems and ideologies. Cultural expression was also a theme of Frost and Laing’s (Chapter 4) discussion of long-distance walking in films, where walking is presented as an activity that prompts healing and redemption. A similar positive portrayal of walking was found in Goertz’s discussion of walking as a means of pedagogy that noted that becoming a college student coincides with becoming a daily walker out of necessity (Chapter 5). Interestingly, she argued that generation Y is the ‘walking generation’ although, as noted in several other chapters in this volume, the extent to which different generations adopt walking as an activity varies between cultures and locations. The final chapter in Part I, by Boland and Wheeller, also highlights the role that walking plays in learning, and emphasises, among other things, that the combination of walking and dialogue has been an ongoing feature of philosophy and literature. As with other chapters in this volume, Boland and Wheeller emphasise that walking is a dynamic social practice, so that even if one starts travelling alone, one always meets and walks with others.
