Therapeutic or detrimental mobilities? Walking groups for older adults
Therapeutic or detrimental mobilities? Walking groups for older adults
The health benefits of walking through greenspace have earned widespread academic attention in recent years and have been termed ‘therapeutic mobilities’. As a result, walking groups are actively encouraged by health professionals as a way to promote ‘healthy ageing’. This paper examines whether the promotion of community-led walking groups relies upon overly optimistic understandings that portray walking in greenspace as an inherently therapeutic practice. Accordingly, this paper introduces the concept of ‘detrimental mobilities’ to explore how the shared movement promoted via walking groups may not always be inherently therapeutic and may have some detrimental impacts on the individuals who take part in these activities. Drawing on findings from in-depth walking interviews with older members of the ‘Walking for Health’ scheme in Southampton, England, this paper examines how mobilities have the potential to disable, as much as they enable, health and wellbeing.
Ageing, Greenspace, Mobility, Therapeutic landscapes, Wellbeing
Paddon, Laura, Isobel
16f841fe-388e-4a6e-a93e-a7300ac0191a
May 2020
Paddon, Laura, Isobel
16f841fe-388e-4a6e-a93e-a7300ac0191a
Abstract
The health benefits of walking through greenspace have earned widespread academic attention in recent years and have been termed ‘therapeutic mobilities’. As a result, walking groups are actively encouraged by health professionals as a way to promote ‘healthy ageing’. This paper examines whether the promotion of community-led walking groups relies upon overly optimistic understandings that portray walking in greenspace as an inherently therapeutic practice. Accordingly, this paper introduces the concept of ‘detrimental mobilities’ to explore how the shared movement promoted via walking groups may not always be inherently therapeutic and may have some detrimental impacts on the individuals who take part in these activities. Drawing on findings from in-depth walking interviews with older members of the ‘Walking for Health’ scheme in Southampton, England, this paper examines how mobilities have the potential to disable, as much as they enable, health and wellbeing.
Text
Therapeutic or detrimental mobilities
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 23 April 2020
Published date: May 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [ ES/P000673/1 ]. Many thanks to all the participants of this study. Thank you to Dr Eleanor Wilkinson for her advice and support, to Dr Andrew Power and Dr Ros Edwards for their comments and my sister Zoe Elmore for help with proof-reading.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
Keywords:
Ageing, Greenspace, Mobility, Therapeutic landscapes, Wellbeing
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 439780
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439780
ISSN: 1353-8292
PURE UUID: 1f802a2b-6d68-4405-9dbb-5856c60a93dd
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 04 May 2020 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:42
Export record
Altmetrics
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics