Reimagining the City Walking Tour to Stimulate a Critical Engagement with Place

For those that utilise walking to engage with place deeply and critically, the guided walking tour can receive some derision ( King & Noble, 2020). Often perceived as touristic, walking tours are tools by which accepted or ‘sanctioned narratives’ are disseminated, and operate in ways that uphold and normalise existing power inequities ( Springgay & Truman, 2018, p. 107). However, as the walking tour evolves, with its interaction with creative practices, so does its opportunity to challenge and upset prevalent understandings of place. In this chapter, Bamford and McKay, through reflections on their practice-based work, demonstrate how the walking tour can become more than a tool for disseminating knowledge, a tool that promotes thinking within participants to challenge perceived knowledge. Bringing their experience of offering critical engagement walkshops in Newcastle-upon-Tyne into conversation with the evolution of the walking tour will demonstrate how walking for leisure is evolving and can become a vehicle for widespread critical engagement.