Cripping desire lines: Disabled people, creative walking and the right to walk the city

Source abstract

This article discusses the impact of Covid-19 on disabled people’s experiences of walking in the UK, using survey and interview data from the project Walking Publics/Walking Arts: Walking, Wellbeing and Community During Covid-19 . Built environments are often encountered by disabled people as hostile and exclusionary. Our research identifies ways that this inequality was significantly magnified during the pandemic, including through overcrowded public spaces, increased street furniture and lack of facilities. Alongside attending to everyday walking experiences, we draw upon creative walking tactics and the work of walking artists, which enable imaginative encounters at multiple scales. These demonstrate how creativity can iterate alternative trajectories which embed accessible infrastructures and facilitate different ways of encountering, moving through and being in the city.