Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 9, No. 8, December 2008 Playing with fear: parkour and the mobility of emotion Stephen John Saville Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion SY23 3DB, UK, [email protected] This article engages debates on emotional geography and non-representational theory by considering fear as a distinctly mobile engagement with our environment. Parkour, or freerunning, has exploded into public consciousness through commercial media representations and films. It is depicted as a spectacular urban sport that either can or cannot be done. Through ethnographic research with groups of parkour practitioners I consider what has been excluded from these representations: the emotions involved in trying, experimenting, and gradually learning to be in places differently. In parkour places are ‘done’ or mobilised in tentative, unsure, ungainly and unfinished ways which can be characterised by a kind of play with architecture. I argue that this play is contingent upon an array of fears, which, rather than being entirely negative, are an important way in which practitioners engage with place. Here fears can manifest differently, not only restricting mobility, but in some cases encouraging imaginative and playful forms of movement. Key words: fear, parkour, freerunning, emotional geography, mobility, place, play. On Wednesday 17 May 2006, David Belle, a He was pleased and excited. After the man heralded as a founder of parkour, and ‘fakeness’ of Californian media-appeasing now international celebrity, runs towards a performances, the Frenchman said he felt solid wall that cordons off an underpass. His more ‘real’. movement is purposeful and practised. All This scene, watched and discussed world- eyes are turned towards him. As he closes on wide amongst parkour practitioners and the barrier and jumps, his calloused hands enthusiasts, gives us pause. How could the reach out, pushing off the top to propel him hero of parkour,the symbolic superhuman fail? over. His trailing foot does not clear the wall; it Watching Belle’s body moving in pixilated slow hits. It pulls his body out of alignment. motion, repeatedly crashing on so many Travelling at speed and out of control David thousands of monitor screens, how does this Belle’s back makes contact with the far wall of event shape the way traceurs (parkour prac- the underpass and he falls ... titioners) or indeed geographers understand ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/08/080891-24 q 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14649360802441440 892 Stephen John Saville and enact places? How might such media could be misleading because it is two-dimensional clips influence and reveal finished; it is a fearless and mature product. our emotional, and specifically our fearful, Outofthemanythousandsofpeople engagements with place? practising parkour worldwide, for the most part we only see images of the few most proficient and experienced individuals per- Introduction: what is parkour? forming a highly rehearsed set of body movements in well-considered and thoroughly Parkour has been variously described as free- explored environments. Of course the vast running, a type of play, the art of displace- majority of parkour practice remains beyond ment, the discipline of moving from A to B as the mainstream media’s focus. fast and efficiently as possible, and even as a While there exists a great divergence in way of life. One of the most defining styles, practice and definition of parkour depictions of parkour is the documentary (many of which clash with sensational media film Jump London (directed by M. Christie), representations), my contention is that it is which first aired in the UK on Channel 4 in essentially a practice intent upon re-imagining September 2003. It combined stylised footage place. It does not give any particular clear or of a group of French traceurs to fabricate a finished blueprint for action (as is often narrative of three heroes who journeyed to peddled by media interests), but constantly London, revitalising and transforming the seeks new ways to move playfully with places. architecture of the city as they went. Early In this act of imagination parkour is granted on, the authoritative narrator tells us what spatially transformative powers which can parkour is: prevent comfortable closure (Parker, Fournier and Reedy 2007).1 When the traceur attempts ‘Imagine living in a city where you didn’t have to to master some movements through space, rely on overcrowded trains, gridlocked roads and such mastery, as it occurs (or not) is always packed pavements. Imagine having superhero accompanied by an emotional refiguring of abilities, able to leap from rooftop to rooftop as if spatial possibilities. In this sense, parkour nothing, not even buildings could stop you. This is speaks quite forcefully to an enchanted notion parkour, the anarchic new sport of freerunning.’ of place which, through wonderment, imagin- ation and participation, is in continuous However much contested, the hugely influen- composition (Crouch 2003; Edensor 2005; tial documentary along with other represen- Fenton 2005; Thrift 2004c). The extended and tations—from television advertisements and serious practice of parkour is always a music videos, to blockbuster Hollywood questing, a search for new and more elaborate movies and internet forums—has been respon- imaginings, it is an opening out of possible, sible for propelling parkour into the public but not necessarily attainable, mobilities. imagination. Such depictions of parkour are In this article I seek to explore some almost always scripted through with heroic emotional sense of what makes parkour a narratives of accomplishment; of highly powerfully engaging mobile practice. Through skilled, mature bodies overcoming the a year-long participatory engagement with constraints of the environment. The ‘armchair parkour,2 I wish to present a feel for the view’ that one might get of parkour from the sensuous connectedness of the emotional body; Parkour and the mobility of emotion 893 one which can be thrilled after a fall (as with Secondly, I wish to show how such practice the opening example), and one that can laugh is characterised by a ‘trying’, that is intent on with friends after the most demanding and creating futures which dare. The way move- painful experiences. In the process I hope to ments are tried in parkour reveals some of the dispel a seemingly common understanding of intimate and profoundly emotional connec- parkour as a spectacular finished product. By tions traceurs have with their material considering some of the emotional specificities environments. By considering this contact, of being a traceur that plays with place, I draw and describing it in some detail, here I hope to attention to what is often overshadowed by a work towards a ‘re-enchanting’ of the body in symbolic or visual ‘reading’ of parkour. The place (Massey and Thrift 2003; Thrift 2004c). changing embodied movements of parkour can Further to this and responding to growing calls be both motivated by different kinds of fear, as in geography that bid us attend to emotions well as a ‘method’ for altering, unveiling, (Anderson and Smith 2001; Bondi, Smith and refining and layering emotional engagements Davidson 2005, Davidson and Milligan 2004) with places. Emotions here are more than and to distinguish between ‘types’ of, and simply something that ‘happen to’ a body; subtleties within emotions (Anderson and rather when fear is a lived and mobile process it Harrison 2006), I consider the flux of can be considered, cultivated and sometimes experiences that could be described as fear. even enjoyed. Avoiding giving fear a purely negative polarity, While there has been some significant work or defining it in terms of opposites (to hope or on embodied mobile practices such as skate- fearlessness for example) (Solomon and Stone boarding (Borden 2001), driving (Edensor 2002), I show how fear can be a highly 2004; Merriman 2007; Sheller 2004), cycling complex engagement with place, which can in (Jones 2005; Spinney 2006) and walking (Wylie some circumstances be considered more a 2005), the practice of parkour gives us an playmate than paralysing overlord. Here excellent opportunity to examine a rapidly affect is not only worked into emotion but emerging phenomenon that is focused on also reconfigured by the emotional engage- finding new ways of moving the body and of ment traceurs have with place. Affect has been inhabiting space. In this article I have three theorised in numerous ways, some of which main aims. First, to develop a concept of the conflate it with emotion (Anderson and Smith ‘parkour body’: an unfinished, ever-learning, 2001; cf. Kraftl and Adey 2008; Thrift 2004a). emotional body that will move away from an Common to most understandings though, is understanding of maturity/immaturity as a an abstract sense in which affect involves a positive/negative binary. The traceur is ever ‘sense of push in the world’ (Thrift 2004a: 64). questing towards new and often fearful move- In this article I have considered the way the ments, many of which are predicated on the body senses this ‘push’, and have thought of attainment of bodily skill. Here, mobile ‘the push’ itself to be the potential for new possibilities arise, and new unsure spatial mobile relations between bodies. This poten- imaginings are drawn forth from previous tial is always in a state of emergence as experience and the prior development of bodily configurations of people, things, ideas and maturity