Walking and Talking: Place-based Data Collection and Mapping for Participatory Design with Communities

Prost, S; Ntouros, V; Wood, G; Collingham, H; Taylor, N; Crivellaro, C; Rogers, J; Vines, J

doi:10.1145/3563657.3596054

Walking and Talking: Place-based Data Collection and Mapping for Participatory Design with Communities

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Sebastian Prost, Vasileios Ntouros, Gavin Wood, Henry Collingham, Dr Nick Taylor ORCiD, Dr Clara Crivellaro, Professor John Vines

Downloads

Accepted version [.pdf]

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

This paper explores the value of a participant-led walking method, during which matters of place in urban or rural contexts are explored. While walking, a diverse dataset is collected, including audio recordings, photographs, GPS tracks, as well as three words that participants are prompted for at each stop along the walk via a bespoke web application. We used this approach in an urban community in the UK and a rural community in Greece as part of ongoing place-based initiatives. Our findings show how participants connected personal and emotional stories with structural issues, countered official, ‘authorised’ discourses about both places, and how maps and videos created after the walks acted as boundary objects. We reflect on the claims of walking as a method that fosters equitable researcher-participant relationships, outline future design directions for participatory walking and mapping technologies, and consider the value of walking methods and map-making for participatory design.