Exploring the Use of Walking Methods to Set Up CERL Partnerships in Brussels

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is pioneering so-called sustainable transition labs: learning networks of students, researchers, teaching staff, and local community members who seek to tackle local, urban challenges together in an impactful and sustainable way. Authentic CERL partnerships require carefully maintaining reciprocity and equality, especially when fragile urban communities are involved. They are challenging to initiate and perpetuate, often resulting in misunderstandings or tensions between the different actors that take part in them. To navigate these challenges in the exploratory stages of CERLpartnerships, we have experimented with walking methodologies. Interviewing on foot is on the rise in qualitative social research. It is said to have the potential 1) to explore the manifold ways in which people connect to themselves, local spaces, and communities; 2) to map out existing social ecosystems; and 3) to build rapport between researchers and participants. Considered associative and inclusive, they are praised for carrying the potential of institutional and methodological innovation. Reflecting on eight walking interviews through Brussels, it is argued that the walking interview can be a fruitful methodology to handle the different tasks that need to be simultaneously tackled in the first stage of establishing CERLpartnerships: 1) mapping networks of actors and organisations; 2) exploring divergent subjective understandings of the neighbourhood; 3) validating experiential knowledge and finding ways to connect it to academic knowledge; 4) building interpersonal relationships and trust; 5) being reflexive about positionality and power imbalances; and 6) eventually finding a niche where the University could engage itself in the future. To be fruitful, however, both CERL-projects, as well as walking methods, need to be well thought-through and carefully catered to each unique encounter. If not, they risk being ineffective or even conflicting and harmful.

ISBN:978-90-466-1144-9

Publication year:2022

Keywords:Service Learning, Community engaged research and learning (CERL), Third Mission, Walking Methods, Methodology, Qualitative methodologies