Keep walking: walking as detour from ‘fitness’ and the building of self-in-isolation and identity in contemporary consumer society

Abstract

Walking, as the most universal form of movement, has been represented as a type of sport in the context of recent health and fitness initiatives. This paper will focus on such initiatives in Taiwan, considering first how ‘walking’ has become a ‘high-quality sport’ and entered the discourses on national health. Second, walking has become part of consumer culture, with the promotion of peripheral products and equipment such as pedometers, footwear and portable music players. The third section of the article discusses how ‘walking by oneself’ builds the ‘self-in-isolation’ with reference to the practice of walking theorized by Debord and de Certeu.

Notes

¹ The Sports Goods Manufactures Association (SGMA) is the trade association of leading industry sports and fitness brands, with a mission to enhance industry vitality and foster sports and fitness participation through research, leadership, product promotion and public policy. SGMA produces the industry leading National Health through Fitness Day on Capitol Hill as well as representing the industry on trade and consumer issues. For more detailed information please refer to SGMA's website: www.sgma.com.

² Huang, Walking.

³ Gao, By the way.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Thousand-Mile Trail Planning Center (TTPC): http://www.tmitrail.org.tw/, in Chinese only.

⁶ There are 14 national trail systems and another 14 local trail systems now in Taiwan. The national trail systems began to take shape in 2003, when the project was given an independent budget. In the past, multiple projects, including the establishment of tourist information centers and trail-marker systems, had to share a single budget for the 17 national forest recreation areas. In the mid-1990s, the FB started to work with the Republic of China Alpine Association on the survey and maintenance of mountaineering trails. Originally built by indigenous peoples or the Qing (1683–1895) or Japanese (1895–1945) colonizers, many of the national trails have a significant place in Taiwan's settlement history. For example, The Jade Mountain system's 152-km Batonguan trail, built in 1875 to manage aboriginal affairs and develop the eastern part of Taiwan, was designated a national historical site in 1987. Please refer to The National Trail System website: http://trail.forest.gov.tw/NationalTrailSystem_En/NationalTrailMap.htm.

⁷ Debord, Theory of the Dèrive; Debord, Situationist Theses on Traffic.

⁸ Hebdige, Hiding in the Light.

⁹ Baudrillard, America, p. 15.

¹⁰ Debord, Theory of the Dèrive.