Paper short abstract:

My paper addresses the tension between ethnographic archives and the ephemeral, engaging with the possibilities of finding room for walks in such archives. I engage the implications of such an endeavour for both the ethnographic archive and for the study of walking as a cultural practice.

Paper long abstract:

The evident tensions between archiving and walking offers an opportunity to examine both of them critically. The tension between archives and performance in general has been highlighted in a number of studies (e.g., Taylor 2003; Gunhild and Gade 2013). Walking in particular challenge transcription, which sometimes results in highly experimental modes of narrating them (e.g., Wylie 2005). One should also consider the tension between folkloristic or ethnographic archives and ephemera collections - whereas the former implicitly or explicitly document performances (oral narratives, rituals, crafts), the latter store materials, saving them from the status of rubbish and transforming them into durable status (Thompson 1979; Elsner and Cardinal 1994). Engaging walking as a cultural practice raises questions of categorization as it is on the one hand the most mundane performance that almost all Homo sapiens share, but as Marcel Mauss showed (1934) it is a practice that is also learned and cultivated. Taking these considerations I intend sketching some characteristics of a possible (archival) home for walks.