Wayfaring: Making Lines in Landscape
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WAYFARING: MAKING LINES IN LANDSCAPE A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Alan Hockley Department of Sports Management, Faculty of Design, Media & Management, Buckinghamshire New University, Brunel University June, 2011 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author under the terms of the United Kingdom Copyright Acts. No quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement Abstract The interpretation of landscape, the significance of walking and the relationships that exist between them are rarely considered or critically examined in much of leisure research or outdoor pedagogic practice, despite their significance within other fields of academic study such as anthropology and cultural geography. This research seeks to explore how a variety of landscapes are perceived, how cultural and social interpretations influence this perception, and whether these interpretations may be re- envisioned by walking, or wayfaring, as an alternate way of making understandings and meanings with landscape. In exploring the disparate interpretations surrounding landscape, the concept of place and its specificity comes to the fore, as does the importance of the relationship between walking and how we make sense of place. A mixed methodological approach is employed to explore this relationship, combining auto-ethnography, phenomenology and the practice of walking itself. Utilising written notes, photographs, and recordings of personal observations and impressions made whilst on a combination of single and multi-day walks in a variety of locales both familiar and unknown in England, a series of reflective narratives were produced. These narratives serve to describe the experiences gained whilst wayfaring, and provide the data through which critical consideration is given regarding how landscape and place are interpreted in cultural and social contexts. Themes emergent from the narratives and discussed include psychogeography and the urban environment, countryside and suburbanisation, and landscape as amenity. In addition, consideration is given to stories of place, authenticity of place, the changing demographics of walkers, walking alone and with others, walking in different types of landscape, and the significance of paths. Key findings are that landscape is increasingly becoming places of consumption through practices of conservation, urbanisation, heritage and recreational amenity that produce a homogenous and hybridised character, and reflects an urban sensibility in regards to rural culture and nature. This might be resisted by walking where an engagement with the sedimented characteristics of a taskscape and its multi-generational footpaths are experienced. Such an embodied practice is a meaningful activity that might be understood through the concept of existential authenticity and, particularly with regards to long distance walking, might be 2 recognised as having components similar to that of pilgrimage. Furthermore, it is suggested that wayfaring offers an alternate perspective as a practice in the development of a particular relationship with landscape and place and has profound implications for outdoor pedagogic practice. 3 Acknowledgements Throughout the course of working on this thesis I have received much support, advice and encouragement from a number of different people, and would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their contributions without which my research would not have been possible. First, my thanks go to Professor Barbara Humberstone and Dr. Fiona McCormack for their patience, advice, support and encouragement throughout the period of my research. They both provided invaluable contributions in many different ways to the development of the ideas I was engaged with for which I shall always be grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the help of those within the Research Department for the Faculty of Design, Media and Management, in particular Laura Bray, and my fellow research students there with whom I had many interesting conversations and exchanges of ideas, in particular Ina, Emily, Muhammet, and Zoe. Thanks are also due to Buckinghamshire New University which provided funding for much of my research period and to attend a number of external conferences and workshops, and also to many of the lecturers and support staff there who directly or indirectly supported my work on the thesis. Finally, I wish to thank my family for the help and encouragement they have given over the years, and in particular my partner Sue for her love, assistance, support and patience. 4 Dedicated to my father Derek Hockley and my mother Pam Hockley 5 Declaration I, Alan Hockley, declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and have been generated by me as the result of my own research. This thesis has not been submitted for any other degree. 6 Contents Chapter One Introduction 1 Research Aims and Objectives 3 Thesis Structure 9 Chapter Two - Landscape The Cultural Landscape 11 The Origins of Landscape 16 The Phenomenological Landscape 19 Mythical and Spiritual Landscape 22 Ancient Sites in Landscape 27 Landscape and Place 31 Landscape, Place and Outdoor Learning 37 Chapter Three – Walking Standing on Two Feet 45 Walking and Landscape 48 A Brief History of Being on Foot 51 Cultures of Walking 58 The Long Distance Walk 62 Urban Walking 66 Walking as a Pilgrim or to Protest 68 Gender, Ethnicity and Walking 70 7 Chapter Four - Methodology Paradigms of Research Methods 72 Auto-ethnography 77 Walking as a Mobile Methodology 84 Biography of Author 86 Summary of Research Rationale 89 Chapter Five - The Urban Pedestrian An Introduction – Psychogeography 91 A Drift and Algorithmic Dèrive 99 Through a Townscape and Beyond 104 Another Local Wander 109 An Analysis 114 Walking Urban Place 117 Chapter Six - Walking in the English Countryside An Introduction 127 Whiteleaf Hill 136 Homogenisation and Counterurbanisation in the Southern Countryside 141 Chapter Seven - Walking the Wall Eastwards An Introduction 150 Walking the Wall Eastwards – Bowness on Solway to Steelrig 153 Exploring the Wall – Haltwhistle and an Excursion along the Wall 166 8 Chapter Eight – Walking the Wall Westwards Return to the Wall – Vindolanda and Housesteads 170 Walking the Wall Westwards – Wallsend to Steelrig 174 Chapter Nine – Walking the Wall An Analysis 185 Tourism, Consumption and Authenticity of Representation 187 The Consumption of Heritage 187 The Representation of Authenticity 193 A History of Walking the Wall and Tourism 202 The Long Distance Walk 209 Walking the Wall – Approaches and Perspectives 213 A Phenomenological Journey 213 Walking as Pilgrimage 215 A Conclusion to Walking the Wall 219 Chapter Ten – Haltwhistle Walking Festival An Introduction 221 9 North of the Wall 222 The Full Moon Walk 224 South of the Wall 226 Stories and Place 230 Connecting the Personal with Place 237 The Sociality of Walking with Others 239 Chapter Eleven - Making Lines in Landscape An Introduction 244 The Cheviots 246 An Analysis 255 The Decline of Walking 255 Walking Paths 258 10 The Spectral and the Wayfarer 266 Chapter Twelve - Conclusion Conclusion 269 Recommendations for Further Study 284 References 285 Appendices 307 Appendix I - Pilot Studies 307 Appendix II – The Cloud 313 Appendix III – Notes on Dérive 316 11 Chapter One Wayfaring – travelling, especially on foot. From Middle English waifaringe, journeying, from Old English wegfarende: weg, way; see way + farende, present participle of faran, to go on a journey. Faerd (Norwegian) – a walking journey. „A faerd is about the journey, not the destination‟ – Nils Faarlund. Introduction Walking is an activity that most people take for granted, since it is a skill most of us learn very early in childhood, even before we are toilet-trained and have spoken our first words. Maybe because of this we rarely question why we walk, how we walk, where we walk and what is achieved by it, particularly since walking carries multiple cultural meanings and practices. Walking as recreation is one of these cultural practices that has developed, and is connected closely to being a way of perceiving, appreciating and having a relationship with landscape, but again this particular practice, perception and relationship has received little enquiry. Therefore, this research project seeks to explore how a variety of specific landscapes are perceived, how prevailing cultural and social interpretations might influence this perception, and whether these interpretations may be modified by walking as an alternate way of making understandings and meanings with landscape. It is through the combination of individual perception of a landscape and its multiple storied character that interpretations can be made of it, and from such interpretation a relationship is brought about between the observer and the place (Tuan, 1974). When a landscape is unfamiliar then the interpretation relies more upon an individual‟s immediate perception of it (Spirn, 1998), influenced by the cultural and social implications it has for the observer (Schama, 1995). As a landscape becomes familiar, however, so then one‟s interpretation of it tends to become more heavily influenced by its storied nature (Lippard, 1997; Cresswell, 2007) and so one‟s immediate perception becomes mediated by these external sources, and in that 12 interpretation a process using the imagination is employed