"Romancing the roam" keynote lecture

Jennie Middleton travels to Padova, Italy next week to give a keynote lecture "‘Romancing the Roam’: care, labour, and the walkable city" at the WALC Transdisciplinary Colloquium on Urban Walking Cultures between Geography and Art. 

Why do romanticised ideals of walking dominate urban imaginaries across academia, policy, and practice when for so many walking in the city is something to endure rather than enjoy? What might be gained by beginning with the less than celebratory and frequently laborious nature of urban walking? This lecture explores how attending to concerns with both the care and labour entangled in urban walking as a practice and method provides an important lens to engage with the everyday politics of walking in the city. Drawing upon critical walking studies and intersectional understandings of gender, race, disability, and class, the differentiated nature of urban walking becomes centre stage. This challenge to romanticised perspectives on walking in the city makes visible the pressing need for more inclusive imaginaries of pedestrian practices and walking methodologies.