Pacemaking and placemaking on the UK canals

This paper focuses on the complex relationship between pace and place, offering a novel lens for understanding mobility within the context of canal boating. Drawing on fieldwork on the canals in north-west England, the paper focuses on mobile placemaking practices. Canal boats act as physical and material but also ideological pacemakers, guiding the boaters towards subscribing to the idea of slow living, where certain canal-based pace-myths play an important role. Pacemaking on the canals is therefore a form of placemaking, realised through the mobility of the vessel, materialities of the infrastructure, tempos and temporalities, representations and stories about canal life as well as the bodies on board and on towpaths as canal boaters modulate and manage their experience and performance of pace. The investigation of the interplay between the slow pace, rhythms, embodied practices, canal infrastructure, and the prevalent pace-myths offers valuable insights into the ways places are shaped by the pace of mobility, thus expanding the concept of placemaking. By foregrounding pace as a key concept in mobility studies, the paper demonstrates the need for a more nuanced understanding of the temporalities associated with different modes of movement.