Using walking interviews

This guide, written by Andrew Clark and Nick Emmel for the National Centre for Research Methods at the University of Manchester, looks at the use of walking interviews in outdoor urban environments. The paper focuses on the practicalities of conducting these interviews and on ways of thinking about the data produced in the method. 

Excerpt

"Walking interviews are interviews conducted on the move. We developed the method in our research as a way of understanding senses of place and neighbourhood attachment, and the extent to which social networks are contextualised and reproduced spatially. The aims of the walking interview in the Connected Lives project were threefold:

• To understand how individuals conceptualise their neighbourhoods
• To understand how individuals think about and articulate their neighbourhoods as well as create them through socio-spatial practices
• To understand how individuals locate their social networks and express their sense of community in relation to (local) places."

Contents

• Why did we conduct walking interviews?
• Developing a walking interview method
• The interview
• Equipment and recording
• Lessons learnt
• Analysis: Roots not routes