EDR #32: “Running blind”, interview with with Jess MacBeth and Ben Powis

“For many runners, habitually traversing the same route time and time again is central to the experience of running. More than a series of points on a map, running routes are lived social places made meaningful through repeated cognitive and corporeal interactions with the physical environment (Allen-Collinson and Hockey 2015; Hockey 2006). As Baxter (2021, 141) argues ‘the relationship between running and place is two-way. The sites of running shape the meanings of the activity, but runners are also actively engaged in defining the meanings of the sites themselves’. In this context, the running route is a place-event which is sensorially lived, developed and refined over time and unique to each runner. Yet, for visually impaired (VI) runners, the route has additional significance: James, a VI runner, states: “I need to know the route because I need to know if the curb is out of line or pavement sticking up because I can’t see it underneath my eyes. So, I’ll be scanning to take in that information and store it. I know where tree trunks are starting to come out through the ground and stuff like that . . . I’m always very observant of everything in front of me; trying to map it out, you know. Are there any branches on the floor? Any potholes? People? Dogs? And I just try and map it all in my brain as I run and kind of have it running in my head . . . I could subconsciously tell you where every crack on the pavement is.” 

This is a passage from a recent article by Ben Powis and Jess MacBeth: ‘Running blind: the sensory practices of Visually Impaired runners’, published in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health in 2023. 

What does it mean to run with a visual impairment? How do VI runners navigate their environment using sound, smell, feel and touch? How do the senses inform VI and sighted practices of running? These are some of the questions I discuss with the authors of this paper - Jess MacBeth, of University of Central Lancashire  and Ben Powis of Bournemouth University. 

By way of introduction: Jess is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Studies. She teaches the sociology of sport and physical education, with a particular interest in equity and equality issues experienced by disabled people and women. Her research expertise lies specifically in visually impaired sport and her work has contributed to debates surrounding classification in disability sport.

Dr Ben Powis is a Senior Lecturer (Sport) in the Department of Sport and Event Management at Bournemouth University. His research interests build upon this field of inquiry and include the sociology of disability sport, visually impaired peoples’ experiences of sport and physical activity and investigating the significance of sensuous sporting experiences.

I’d like to thank both Jess and Ben for their time and sharing their research through the podcast. So, without further chitter chatter from myself, here is the interview and I hope you enjoy it.

 

***

Andy Fuller/Reading Sideways Press

Strava: Andy Fuller

Instagram: Everyday Runners Leiden

Twitter/X: @readingsideways

Email: everydayrunnerspodcast@gmail.com