As part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Sciences we go on a walk to explore how emotional attachments to place – spaces which range from the house to the wider neighbourhood – are formed and lost over the course of a life. This free event is part of the Economic & Social Research Council’s annual Festival of Social Sciences. Most of the accounts have come from walking interviews facilitated by Aled Singleton’s PhD research project at the Centre for Innovation Ageing at Swansea University. The stories revealed of everyday life in Caerleon from the 1960s and 1970s are fascinating. For example, we chart how private motor transport changed the lives of the ‘baby boomers’ and how people moved from terraced streets to semi-detached housing. This event will help us go back in time to understand how the values and expectations of the soon-to-be old were formed. This exploration uses psycho-geographical principles – particularly walking as a group – to locate and explore emotions and memories. Performance artist [TBC] will accompany us on this walk and use dramatic means to bring life to certain spaces. You are not expected to contribute in any dramatic sense, but we hope you will lose yourself in the experience and be able to engage with the ideas. We will be filming parts of the event and would be grateful if you can share immediate responses and potentially connect with your own experiences and memories. Search for ‘Walking the 152’ on Facebook or Instagram to find out how we got on with an exploratory walk for the Caerleon Arts Festival in July 2019. The walk will take up to three hours. We will cover just over 3 miles, some of will be hilly, but all on hard surfaces. Please bring suitable footwear and a packed lunch. We will finish the event with a chance to discuss any aspect of the experience. We look forward to seeing you there.
