The Unsettling Outdoors

Series Editors' Preface viii

Acknowledgements ix

1 A Wager and a Strategy 1

2 Taking an Interest in the Everyday Lives of Others 25

3 Forgetting the Outdoors: Inside the Office 47

4 Avoiding the Outdoors: On the Treadmill 71

5 Succumbing to the Outdoors: In the Garden 96

6 Embracing the Outdoors: At the Festival 120

7 Conclusion 145

Index 164

'In this perceptive, original and timely intervention, Russell Hitchings shows that the potential benefits of greenspace use will not be realised without consideration of how it interacts with the practices of everyday life. Distinguished by its crystal-clear prose, The Unsettling Outdoors also provides a passionate defence of the interview method in the social sciences.'
Lesley Head, Professor of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia

'Russell Hitchings' revealing interviews with office workers, recreational runners, garden owners, and festival campers show how distinctions between controlled indoor environments and 'the great outdoors' are enacted in practice. The result is a book that promises to transform long-standing debates about relations between people and the plants, trees and microbes with which they live.'
Elizabeth Shove, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK

'With a down-to-earth style, Hitchings' work embodies urban geography at its best - rooted in creativity, reflexivity, theoretical insight without dogma, and a deep attentiveness to the entanglements of human and beyond-human worlds. The book is not only a valuable resource for researchers and students in geography, planning and the built environment, but also a fascinating and engaging read.'
Sarah Royston (reviewing in Buildings & Cities)

Russell Hitchings is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at University College London, UK. He has studied everyday life in a variety of contexts around the world and has published widely on qualitative methods, energy consumption, climate adaptation and nature experience.