Walking practice and suburban nature-talk

Drawing on recent conceptualisations of ‘performativity’ this article examines the experiential knowledge of a heterogenous group of people who regularly walk through a maze of criss-crossing paths in a relatively flat suburban Australian reserve. Attention is given to how routine walking can be conceptualised as one way of ‘doing’ nature. Routine walking is conceptualised as a territory-making process. Mindful of the social context and bodily experience, walking offers insights into the possibilities of making points of connection with the performances of plants and animals. While experiential knowledge from habitual walking illustrates the blurring of culture–nature dichotomies, walkers still rely on the fiction of the distinction that divides them to make sense of self and place. To elicit a more conversational narrative and tap into the lived experiences of walking, our methodological approach relied upon photography. How respondents express a type of care for, and protect animals and plants in a territory understood as their own backyard has direct relevance to recent discussions of the role residents can play in the current and future environmental management of suburban reserves and parks.