Walk this way: the rhythmic mobilities of university students in Greater Manchester, UK

Abstract

Mobility in the context of higher education is often privileged to large(r)scale international movements, neglecting the everyday mobilities practiced by students. This is important, as banal mobilities constitute important affective experiences for students. In responding to calls for a microbodily mobilities approach to student geographies in the UK, we draw on semi-structured interviews conducted with university students aged 18-25 studying in Greater Manchester. Through discussing the complex, multilayered everyday walking mobilities of students, we illuminate how embodied, emotional and affective walking mobility practices shape students' experiences and identities. Findings show that, for students in our study, moorings are often as important as mobilities to identity formation, and place attachment. Bringing to the fore the embodied, emotional and affective nature of student micro-mobilities is necessary, since various forms of movement and stillness are important to student wellbeing, enabling students to have space and time to think, reflect, and form attachments and belonging with people and spaces. This paper has implications for higher education and urban designers. We contend that it is crucial to draw attention to students' experiences of walking and sitting in the city, which significantly contribute to constructing sense of place and belonging to the university city.

Futures Studies, Mobilities, and the Postdigital Condition: Contention or Complement

“…Researchers, working with students walking in Manchester, observed: 'We recognise that accompanying students "in the field" can enable researchers to explore students' narratives "in place", and observe first-hand how multi-sensual, multi-layered experiences of places may be both captured and interpreted.' (Wilkinson and Badwan 2020) The research was however sadly conducted indoors and stationary. These remarks capture the potential of the mobile empirical.…”

El apego al recorrido en el centro de Santiago de Chile

“…Son recientes y de enfoque variado los estudios que han profundizado sobre este proceso de apego en un marco de lo fijo y lo móvil en relación con la movilidad peatonal (Arnberger et al, 2022;Chan et al, 2020;Chaparro, 2020;Chen et al, 2020;Córdova Ramírez, 2022;Fontes, 2018;Herrmann-Lunecke et al, 2022;Lager et al, 2021;Maciejewska et al, 2020;Smith y Aranha, 2022;Wilkinson y Badwan, 2021), lo cual demuestra que el caminar puede detonar maneras y niveles de apego más profundos que los que se pudiese crear con otras formas de trasladarse. Caminando se forja la práctica de la noción de territorio (Chaparro, 2020) y por ello, las micro movilidades deben ser estudiadas para entender aspectos de pertenencia y apego a los lugares.…”

“…(iv) El entorno social implica también distracción al mirar dinámicas de y con otros peatones; genera gusto al identificar rostros conocidos; y genera gusto al hacer al peatón sentirse parte de un grupo social de personas que diariamente caminan a su trabajo. Esto significa que el caminar sirve para sentirse parte de una comunidad (Wilkinson y Badwan, 2021). Existe también la oportunidad de experimentar acciones solidarias entre transeúntes (realizarlas, recibirlas u observarlas).…”

A Win-Win Scheme for Improving the Environmental Sustainability of University Commuters’ Mobility and Getting Environmental Credits

“…In light of this, specific attention has long been paid to sustainable-transportation planning on large campuses [31,32] in order to identify best practices that could help students transition to more effective travel modes [33], while also taking into account the correlation between psychosocial and environmental issues [34,35]. In addition, other studies have investigated the positive effects of active commuting on physical activity and students' overweight [36], as well as comparisons of walking, biking and motorcycle riding [37].…”