1. Walking the city: a strategy for inclusive learning and critical engagement beyond the classroom Dr Steve Millington Manchester Metropolitan University North West STEM Project Photo: Richard Thorp

3. MMU’s Birley Fields Proposal

5. Photo: the author

6. Introduction But it’s just walking isn’t it? Walking in Manchester Key activities and findings Preliminary conclusions Photo: ExHulme website

7. But it’s just walking isn’t it? Walking in popular culture Ingold & Vergunst, 2008; Solnit, 2006; Sinclair, 2002 Walking embedded into a wide range of practices

8. But it’s just walking isn’t it? The figure of the flâneur (Benjamin, 1929) Participatory research tool Mobile methodologies “go-along” (Kusenbach, 2003) Mobility and society (Cresswell, 2006; Edensor, 2000; Sheller and Urry, 2006) Photo: Maureen Ward

9. But it’s just walking isn’t it? A pedogical device for learning beyond the classroom (Porter, 2008) Fostering deeper understandng Engaging non-traditonal learners Accessibile research and teaching device Photo: North West Film Archive

10. But it’s just walking isn’t it? Geography field work tradition – From the Cook’s Tour to critical field engagement – Capacity of walking to explore the specificities of place (Pinder, 2008) – “Urban experience from down below” (de Certeau, 1984) – A sense of place Photo: the author Peace, Vote Robinson

11. But it’s just walking isn’t it? “Places are coincidences of events, emotions, memories and artefacts remarkable for being simulataneous and connected” (Anderson and Moles, 2008) Sensory geographies: Affect and emotional Materialities of places Sensorial experience of place The immanent and unexpected Walkers “produce themselves in space at the same time they produce space” Simonsen (2008)

12. I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way I may be a wageslave on Monday But I am a free man on Sunday From Manchester Rambler (Ewan McColl) Walking in Manchester Manchester legend – Benny Rothman

13. Walking in Manchester Walking as resistance Walking and political protest – Ramblers Association and Mass Trespass Psychogeography – Situationist International – Dérive or the drift – Manchester PsychogeographicUnit Continuing significance of walking based arts and political groups – Urbis Research Forum – Loiterers Resistance Movement – Manchester Zedders – Manchester Modernist Society Photo: ExHulme website

14. Key activities and findings Since December 2009 six tours completed + one more scheduled 120+ people Wide range of backgrounds from activists to senior MMU managers and support staff Mixed race, gender, sexuality, inter-generational Photo: the authort

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19. 19 Princess Parkway (1971)

21. Key activities and findings Contentious relationship between Hulme and the universities Who is educating who? Shifting insititutional culture of the university Participation of senior MMU staff has been essential Photo: the author

22. Key activities and findings “the process/rhythm of walking in landscape animating the brain the self in relation to it – in ways which generate emotive, affective and imaginative opportunities or demands or impulses” (Jones, 2008) Intimacy Interaction Multiple knowledges Beyond the classroom Photo: the author

23. Key activities and findings Themes arising – rights of access – nature and open space – planning and community – democracy and decision making – Architecture and urban design – urban regeneration – community and its loss – history – w/c identity and heritage – Housing – creativity and space – Contested aesethics – Urban elites Photo: the author

24. Conclusions Public engagement benefits and synergies, but uncomfortable positionality Educating the educators – changing insitutional attitudes towards university’s publics Critical value of walking as an learning and engagement device Repositioning geography as an academic discipline Need for continual monitoring and evaluation Photo: the author