Walking W8 in Manalos

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Knowles, Caroline. 2017. Walking W8 in Manalos. In: Charlotte Bates and Alex Rhys-Taylor, eds. Walking Through Social Research. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138674042 [Book Section]

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Abstract or Description

In mediating the sensory footwork of dwelling, in connecting us with the ground on which our lives are lived-in-motion, appropriate shoes are needed. Few would countenance leaving home without shoes when embarking on the mundane journeys of everyday life: and this underscores their central, if rarely explored, function in mobility. Shoes need to fit the walker and the territory. Flip-flops, the world’s cheapest shoes, are for the beach, and for the poor in the global south who can’t afford other shoes. Manolos are London W8. If postcodes could be shoes, W8 would be a fabulous pair of high-heeled Manolos, suitably elegant, appropriately expensive. Plutocratic shoes: suitable for navigating one of London’s uber wealthy neighbourhoods, shoes for delicately stepping around the tensions between the concealment and exposure of wealth and erring on the side of exposure in an expensive pair of shoes. Shoes both express and co-compose urban social morphology and social distinction.

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