The sociality of walking: A post-phenomenological study on everyday walking among parents in Québec

Abstract

The lack of sociality – or social relationships – has consequences for health, especially for parents for whom raising a child takes a village. Walking has long been credited with promoting sociality. Yet the link between sociality and walking has received insufficient attention. To understand how walking supports sociality among parents in a Quebec context, we conducted a post-phenomenological study focusing on everyday walking. The experience of walking was explored through go-along interviews and follow up interviews with 26 parents. The thematic analysis illuminated that walking fostered sociality via three interrelated processes. Firstly, walking weaved people together via the spatial permeations it promoted and associated relations of familiarities, commonalities and mnemotics. Secondly, walking led participants to relate to their community through encounters, facilitating the emergence of sociality in the form of recognition, alienation, resonance and dissonance. Lastly, walking enabled communions through the social spaces created by the movement such as villages or bubbles. This study illustrates the unique contribution of walking to an underappreciated aspect of health: the social aspect. This work ultimately opens the door to the implementation of mundane interventions that target social heath.