Therapeutic or detrimental mobilities? Walking groups for older adults

The health benefits of walking through greenspace have earned widespread academic attention in recent years and have been termed ‘therapeutic mobilities’. As a result, walking groups are actively encouraged by health professionals as a way to promote ‘healthy ageing’. This paper examines whether the promotion of community-led walking groups relies upon overly optimistic understandings that portray walking in greenspace as an inherently therapeutic practice. Accordingly, this paper introduces the concept of ‘detrimental mobilities’ to explore how the shared movement promoted via walking groups may not always be inherently therapeutic and may have some detrimental impacts on the individuals who take part in these activities. Drawing on findings from in-depth walking interviews with older members of the ‘Walking for Health’ scheme in Southampton, England, this paper examines how mobilities have the potential to disable, as much as they enable, health and wellbeing.