Paper short abstract:

We conducted a meta-ethnography of research on experiences of group walking. We show that walkers' initial disciplinary focus on health is transformed through the experience of walking together into a shared meaningful and enjoyable practice; an emergent communal therapeutic mobility.

Paper long abstract:

Increased attention to links between walking and health have prompted the development of 'walking for health' groups, convened on a regular basis to offer short, social walks. A number of studies have sought to interrogate understandings and experiences of group walking in a variety of contexts, both outdoors and indoors, using qualitative methods. We used meta-ethnography to synthesise 21 such studies. From the original constructs identified in the papers we identified five higher order constructs: seeking and enjoying health and fitness, attachment to walking, providing purpose and confidence, mobile companionship and a peaceful and contemplative shared respite from everyday life. We constructed a line of argument analysis based on these constructs and also drawing from the largely geographical literature on therapeutic mobilities and the largely anthropological literature on pilgrimage. We argue that participating in a walking group provides a set of experiences that together constitute a specific form of shared or communal therapeutic mobility that is not simply the accumulation of the constructs we have outlined. Rather, we suggest that an initial instrumental and disciplinary focus on health and fitness is transformed through the experience of group walking into a shared meaningful and enjoyable practice; an emergent communal therapeutic mobility. We see a direct parallel with pilgrimage, a journey with sacred and religious intent, that can, consistently with the Turners' concepts of communitas and liminoidity, become a transformative experience of the self.