Understanding how your high street feels

In 2024, Dr Chloe Steadman (project lead) and Loretta Lipworth (researcher) conducted a project into methods for researching high street atmospheres, funded by a Manchester Metropolitan University Research Accelerator Grant. The project aimed to establish which methods are most effective for researching atmosphere – the feel of place – on the high street. The study involved conducting a scoping literature review about atmospheric methods and trialling six methods thought to be particularly valuable for researching atmospheres, through researcher fieldwork visits and two walking tours with 10 participants on a British high street. The methods tried out include: drawing/mapping, photography, poetry, sensory participation, smellwalk, and soundwalk.

The researchers have created a guide for each of the six methods trialled in the research for those interested in using a particular method, and they have also combined them into a single Atmospheric Methods Guide for those wanting to learn about a range of methods that could be used to investigate the atmosphere or feel of place. The guides are designed to provide practical information and advice to academics, students, or practitioners about using creative and sensory methods to study atmospheres on the high street or other places. They offer an accessible starting point for those wanting to try out a method they have perhaps not used before and include: a background to the method; how to get started; benefits and challenges; example of the method in action, and suggested further reading. The researchers hope the guides inspire others to give some of these methods a go in their own work.

Anyone interested in learning more can read the published paper here.

The researchers would love to know if you find use for the guides in your own research, work, or teaching. Please contact Dr Chloe Steadman if you would like to share how you’ve used any of the guides

You can access the six methods by clicking the images below.

We have created this Atmospheric Methods Guide as part of a project
into methods for researching high street atmospheres, led by Dr Chloe
Steadman and funded by a Research Accelerator Grant at Manchester
Metropolitan University. The guide is designed to provide practical
advice to academics, students, and others involved in researching the
topic of atmosphere about a range of sensory and creative methods
that could be used to do so

Creative methods such as drawing and mapping are increasingly used in consumer
research and other fields as a way of accessing and communicating affective,
embodied, and emotional experience. When used to convey atmospheric
experiences of place, drawing and mapping can be used as standalone methods or
combined.

Visual methods are geared around producing non-verbal and non-textual
knowledge. As one of the most commonly adopted visual methods, photography
involves making a still image recording of something of research interest using a
camera or smartphone.

Poetry is becoming more commonly used in fields such as marketing, where poems
have been showcased at the Consumer Culture Theory Conference and International Place Branding Association Art Gallery. It is a creative and flexible method which can be effective for communicating personal, emotional, and vulnerable experiences of place.

Academic research is said to be undergoing a ‘sensory turn’, with approaches such
as sensory ethnography–paying attention to multiple senses throughout the
research process–becoming more commonplace. Whilst participant observation is a
key method in the ethnographer’s toolkit, sensory participation involves attuning
more keenly to multisensory and embodied experiences of place, and using the
body as an instrument of research in knowledge generation.

Smellwalks have become an increasingly utilised method as part of the ‘sensory
turn’ and move towards unsettling the dominance of the visual in qualitative
research, as well as the growth in more mobile forms of inquiry.