Abstract
The flâneur is investigated as a metaphor while considering how walking as a creative research method invites sensorial experience and functions as a relational and place-making practice. In order to consider the generativity of the flâneur in relation to current scholarship, I draw on researchers who utilize walking methods and practices in their research methodologies. Walking brings researchers in relation to emplaced historical narratives that address social injustices, such as colonizing events on particular lands (Veronesi and Gemeinboeck 2009). Through “mindful walking” practices (Jung 2014) “place-as-route” and “place-as-event” (Pink 2007) engage the ongoing process of place-making, attaching meaning to spaces so that sensory-based relational wanderings become affective, storied, and personal places. As a research practice, walking is a shared mode between research, artistic, educational, and flaneurial practices, all activated in everyday ambulation that brings researchers into relation.
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to Amy Chaloupka for her generous reading and thoughtful suggestions for this chapter. Thank you also to Rita Irwin and Lexi Lasczik Cutcher for their suggestions and guidance in the writing process.
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Lenz Kothe, E. (2018). Inquiry While Being in Relation: Flâneurial Walking as a Creative Research Method. In: Lasczik Cutcher, A., Irwin, R. (eds) The Flâneur and Education Research. Palgrave Studies in Movement across Education, the Arts and the Social Sciences. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72838-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72838-4_2
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