Global Reality social research - human geography - blog

The WalkBlog project is a work in progress. A big part of my Ph.D on Walking in Wales (i.e. How to get more people doing it). It's a simultaneously exciting and worrying move from passive research to a more 'active' action research (i.e. From looking at something and writing about it, to looking at something, writing about it, contributing to it, changing it, and writing about it again).

Action research is research that tries to directly contribute toward the improvement of the social conditions that are its focus. In my case these social conditions aren't poverty, starvation, or civil war, but are rather more modest (but no less challenging!). In my case, I'm studying the Sports Council for Wales' Let's Walk Cymru initiative.

The aim of Let's Walk Cymru is to provide opportunities for inactive (physically but also socially and politically) people to improve their health and engage with their surroundings and communities through walking. Anybody can take part in the scheme, which since its inception in 2006 has been paid for by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and managed by the Sports Council for Wales (who took over from the Countryside Council for Wales).  The scheme has helped thousands of people across Wales to get out, meet new people, improve their confidence and physical health - in some cases in rather dramatic ways - by taking part in regular walking.

The trouble is, Let's Walk Cymru is having trouble justifying its public investment - not, I believe, because it is not a valuable scheme, but because it is rather difficult to 'value' a scheme like this, despite the phenomenal effect it has had on many peoples lives.

Where does Walk Blog come in?

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