The Routledge International Handbook of Walking

Description

Walking is an essentially human activity. From a basic means of transport and opportunity for leisure through to being a religious act, walking has served as a significant philosophical, literary and historical subject. Thoreau’s 1851 lecture on Walking or the Romantic walks of the Wordsworths at Grasmere in the early 19th Century, for example, helped create a philosophical foundation for the importance of the act of walking as an act of engagement with nature. Similarly, and sometimes inseparable from secular appreciation, pilgrimage trails provide opportunities for finding self and others in the travails of the walk. More recently, walking has been embraced as a means of encouraging greater health and well-being, community improvement and more sustainable means of travel. Yet despite the significance of the subject of walking there is as yet no integrated treatment of the subject in the social science literature. This handbook therefore brings together a number of the main themes on the study of walking from different disciplines and literatures into a single volume that can be accessed from across the social sciences. It is divided into five main sections: culture, society and historical context; social practices, perceptions and behaviours; hiking trails and pilgrimage routes; health, well-being and psychology; and method, planning and design. Each of these highlights current approaches and major themes in research on walking in a range of different environments. This handbook carves out a unique niche in the study of walking. The international and cross-disciplinary nature of the contributions of the book are expected to be of interest to numerous academic fields in the social and health sciences, as well as to urban and regional planners and those in charge of the management of outdoor recreation and tourism globally. C. Michael Hall is Professor of Marketing, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Docent in Geography, Oulu University; Visiting Professor, Linneaus University; and Senior Research Fellow, University of Johannesburg. Author and editor of over 80 books, he has published widely on tourism, sustainability, governance and food issues. Yael Ram is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Tourism Studies, Ashkelon Academic College, Israel. Noam Shoval is Professor of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 List of figures......Page 12 List of tables......Page 13 List of contributors......Page 15 Preface and acknowledgements......Page 20 1 Introduction: walking — more than pedestrian ......Page 22 PART I Culture, Society and Historical Context......Page 46 2 Walking in the capitalist city: on the socio-economic origins of walkable urbanism ......Page 48 3 Radical twenty-first-century walkers and the Romantic qualities of leisure walking ......Page 58 4 Long-distance walking in films: promises of healing and redemption on the trail ......Page 67 5 Walking as pedagogy ......Page 76 6 Walking in Germany: between recreation and ideology ......Page 86 7 Walking and art: perambulating pleasures ......Page 95 PART II Social Practices, Perceptions and Behaviours......Page 102 8 Dog walking as a leisure activity ......Page 104 9 Walking ill Switzerland: urban and not so leisurely ......Page 113 10 Purposeful leisure mobilities; refraining the walk to school ......Page 121 11 Spiking: the quest for challenge and meaning among hikers ......Page 130 12 On the beaten track: how do narratives from organised hiking differ from "real" hiking narratives? ......Page 140 13 Comparisons between hikers and non-hikers in Iceland: attitudes, behaviours and perceptions ......Page 148 14 Passeggiata nuova: social travel in the era of the smartphone ......Page 158 15 Walking online: a netnography of China's emerging hiking communities ......Page 168 PART III Hiking Trails and Pilgrimage Routes......Page 178 16 Hut-to-hut-hiking trails: a comparative analysis of popular hiking destinations ......Page 180 17 Taking you home: the Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil in Palestine ......Page 193 18 The Wales Coast Path: the world's first national coastal footpath ......Page 205 19 Improving the experience quality of hiking trails: a setting-experience-relationship approach ......Page 215 20 Hikers' preferences and DMO strategies: contrasting perspectives and conflicting views? ......Page 227 21 Re-signifying smuggling: cross-border walking trails as a tourist experience in the Spanish—Portuguese border ......Page 236 22 The solo-hike: a journey of distance and closeness ......Page 244 23 Walking to care: pilgrimage as a slow tourism development — Kumano-kodo pilgrimage. Wakayama, Japan ......Page 253 24 Hindu pilgrimage in India and walkability: theory and praxis ......Page 263 PART IV Health, Well-being and Psychology......Page 272 25 Rambling on: exploring the complexity of walking as a meaningful activity ......Page 274 26 Life-changing walks of mid-life adults ......Page 285 27 Walking to promote increased physical activity ......Page 295 28 Taking the first step: from physical inactivity towards a healthier lifestyle through leisure walking ......Page 309 29 Dog walking in urban greenspaces ......Page 321 PART V Method, Planning and Design......Page 330 30 Walkable places for visitors: assessing and designing for walkability ......Page 332 31 Walking on the shoulders of giants: historical mountain trails as management tools? ......Page 351 32 Wayfinding design for rural flânerie in France ......Page 361 33 Community benefits from walking tourism in Western Norway ......Page 371 34 When walking is no longer possible: investigating crowding and coping practices in urban tourism using commented walks ......Page 381 35 Assessing the walkability of urban public space with GIS technology: the hidden dimensions of security and community heritage ......Page 390 36 Developing a spatial pattern analysis method for evaluating trails in the mountains: the case of Beban Pass in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina ......Page 400 37 Improving the walkability of the Camino ......Page 411 38 Walk on: conclusions and the future ......Page 424 Index......Page 434