Walking-with whiteness

White, R (2020) 'Walking-with whiteness.' In: Billinghurst, H, Hind, C and Smith, P, eds. Walking bodies: papers, provocations and actions from Walking's New Movements, the conference. Triarchy Press, Axminster, pp. 204-213. ISBN 9781913743093

Abstract

This chapter develops a conference paper offering an iteration of walking-with (Sundberg 2013; Springgay and Truman 2018) building on Sweet Waters, a walking arts exploration of legacies of slave-ownership in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bath, UK. The project revealed obscured histories and interrogated the City’s reluctant heritage (Tomory 1999; Otele 2016) of empire and slave generated wealth. A participatory performative strategy emerges from the juxtaposition of registers of walking. The approach foregrounds corporeal and affective experience, employing the questioning tactics of 'affect aliens' (Ahmed 2010) on the official heritage narrative. Sweet Waters reveals and challenges white silence (Di Angelo 2012) through a frictional insertion into a heritage experience racialised as white. The presentation proposes a creative non-confrontational method of engagement with complex and entangled heritages towards social repair. Walkers become agents and story carriers of rich heritage narratives; the reluctance to address legacies of slave-ownership is eroded through a walking-with approach.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Note:	This research output is part of a curated collection of papers, provocations and actions from the ‘Walking’s New Movements’ conference held at the University of Plymouth, UK, in November 2019.
Divisions:	Bath School of Art, Film and Media
Research Centres and Groups:	Arts for Social Change Research Group Creative Corporealities Research Group Centre for Media Research
Date Deposited:	04 Jan 2022 17:04
Last Modified:	17 May 2022 15:40
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/13878

	Request a change to this item or report an issue
	Update item (repository staff only)