Walking and mapping methodologies: creative explorations of people’s relationships with space

This discussion note reflects on the experiences of collaborating to produce a hybrid workshop on walking and mapping methodologies (author 1 & author 2, 2023) building on research, scholarship and teaching in this area that we, the authors, have been undertaking over the past decade. The workshop explored how walking and mapping might be used in educational settings, in particular multilingual and transnational environments in higher education institutions. It brought together multidisciplinary perspectives on ‘space’, drawing on creative inquiry and applied linguistics, linguistic landscapes, and social geography. Our workshop was aimed at anyone with interests in creative approaches to research, particularly those engaged with participants’ lives and interactions within, across, and through space; and we intended to examine the challenges and opportunities of these approaches, including applications in their own research, scholarship and teaching. Here we outline the processes and thinking behind them, in the form of a two-part dialogue. We raise questions for researchers and educators about boundaries between research, teaching and scholarship, in addition to how walking and mapping methodologies might be critically engaged with in higher education.