Department of Sociology
About the walk
The development of the York Death & Culture Walk is interwoven with the development and successful publishing of the York Crime Walk. The York Crime Walk (2017-18), led by Professor Maggie O'Neill and Dr Ruth Penfold-Mounce, alongside Harriet Crowder, Matt Coward-Gibbs and Dr David Honeywell. Building on O'Neill's work in participatory, creative, biographical and visual research (O'Neill 2010, Hubbard, O'Neill & Stenning 2013, O'Neill 2014) the walk aims to act as a tool to generate knowledge and understanding and engage in a critical recovery of the histories of crime, punishment and justice in city spaces.
Following an initial period of research by Harriet Crowder in late 2018, Ruth Penfold-Mounce and Matt Coward-Gibbs began to develop an overarching framework for the DaCWalk that would make it into a public engagement tool as well as of pedagogical value for university students. The DaCWalk aims to act as a tool to generate knowledge and understanding and engage in a critical recovery of the histories of death, dying and the dead in city spaces and beyond. It draws upon experts views and research relating to key issues of mortality that are connected to places and spaces within York.
Related sources
Edensor, T. (2010) ‘Walking in Rhythms: place, regulation, style and the flow of experience’ in Visual Studies, 25 (1): 46–58.
Freire, P. (2007[1970]) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum. (trans. Myra Ramos)
Illich, I. (1973) Tools for Conviviality, London: Harper & Row.
Myers, M. (2010) ‘Walk with me, talk with me: the art of conversive wayfinding’, Visual Studies, 26 (1): 50–68
O’Neill, M. (2014) ‘Participatory Biographies: Walking, Sensing, Belonging’ in O’Neill, M. Roberts, B. Sparkes, A. (Eds) Advances in Biographical Methods: creative applications, London: Routledge
O’Neill, M. and Hubbard, P. (2010) ‘Walking, sensing, belonging: ethno-mimesis as performative praxis’, Visual Studies, 25 (1): 46–58.
O’Neill, M. and Stenning, P. (2013). Walking biographies and innovations in visual and participatory methods: Community, Politics and Resistance in Downtown East Side Vancouver, in C. Heinz and G. Hornung (Eds) The Medialization of Auto/Biographies: Different Forms and their Communicative Contexts, Hamburg: UVH.
O’Neill, M. and Perivolaris, J. (2014) ‘A Sense of Belonging: Walking with Thaer through migration, memories and space ‘in Crossings: journal of migration and culture Volume 5 Issue 2-3
Penfold-Mounce, R. and Coward-Gibbs, M. (2018) 'Creative Methodologies: Walking with Death in York', paper presented at Death & Culture II, University of York (6-7 September).
Pink, Sarah (2008). Mobilising Visual Ethnography: Making Routes, Making Place and Making Images [27 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(3)
Pink, S. Hubbard, P. O’Neill, M. & Radley, A. (2010) ‘Walking across disciplines from ethnography to arts practice’ in Visual Studies, 25 (1): 46–58
Pink, S. (2012) Advances in Visual Methods, London: Sage
Core Team
Dr Ruth Penfold-Mounce is Director of Criminology and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology.
Matt Coward-Gibbs is a PhD Student in the Department of Sociology and the administrator of DaCNet.
Expert Speakers
Dr Gian Luca Amadei is DaCNet's visiting researcher whose research interests lay at the intersection between architecture, urban planning, sociology and human geography.
Dr Rachael Burns is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Sociology whose research focuses primarily on genocide, war and state crimes.
Louis Carter is a Collections and Archive Assistant at the York Archeological Trust
Dr Jack Denham is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at York St John University. His research focuses on the cultural consumption of crime.
Daniel Robins is a PhD Student in the Department of Sociology. His research explores the value of the corpse.
Carol Robinson is an ESRC funded PhD Student in the Department of Sociology and prison chaplain. Her research focuses on death in prisons from natural causes.
Dr Julie Rugg is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York.
Professor James Sharpe is an Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History in the Department of History at the University of York.
Rosie Smith is a Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at York St John University. Her research explores the concept of spectacular justice.
Special thanks
We would like to thank Professor Maggie O'Neill (University College Cork), Harriet Crowder, Dr Sarah Mitchell, Emma Hamlett, Robert Wake, Dr M Faye Prior, the York Archeological Trust, the York Castle Museum and the Research Centre for Social Sciences.