Jography: Exploring Meanings, Experiences and Spatialities of Recreational Road-running

Abstract

Jogging is a relatively under-researched mobile practice with much existing literature focusing on ‘serious’ and competitive running. In this paper, we provide an account of some of the movements, meanings and experiences that together help produce the practice of jogging in the south-western English city of Plymouth. Drawing upon participant diaries and interviews, we uncover rich detail about how joggers ascribe not one but a number of meanings to their practice. Some of these are positive, some are negative; some complement each other and some compete with each other. We also consider how the experiences of joggers can be shaped by their ongoing need to develop tactics capable of enabling them to negotiate space with non-joggers. This is in some contrast to more competitive running that occurs in the separated space of an athletics track. Our sense is that better awareness of the meanings and experiences of jogging will be of value if the advertised health and sustainability benefits of the practice are to be more effectively encouraged and promoted.

Key Words:

• Running
• Jogging
• Experience
• Meaning
• Movement
• Mobility

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tim Absalom for drawing the diagrams, and to Tim Schwanen and audiences in Tampa, London and Sheffield, for their very insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. We are also grateful to the two anonymous referees whose critical reading of a previous version has significantly refined our thinking. Finally, special thanks to the joggers themselves for sharing their experiences and making the paper possible in the first place.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use the term ‘jogging’ here to distinguish the form of running of interest in this paper from that of the more serious or competitive running of interest to other authors. We pass no judgement on the ability or seriousness of our participants with regard to their running.

2. It is fair to say we each have varied experience of running and jogging. One of us is a faded club runner who has raced competitively at county level. He still jogs regularly today, enjoying more of the experiential benefits of running whilst dreaming of days (and speeds) gone by. Another previously jogged about three times a week to maintain some level of fitness and to counteract the sedentary nature of the academic working day (and his enthusiastic Friday evening drinking). This has largely been interrupted by a niggling hamstring injury. The other has a difficult relationship with running, doing so less often than he probably should and only in good weather.

3. We do not intend to open this debate. For some discussion on how cyclists view such things, and indeed how cyclists’ behaviour is viewed by others: see Aldred (2013); Aldred and Jungnickel (2012); Daley and Rissel (2011).