Moving Together - Prof. Tessa Pollard (Inaugural Professorial lecture)

Working with fantastic colleagues (the PALs of the Department’s Physical Activity Lab) over the last decade, I have enjoyed jointly exploring notions of therapeutic mobilities in the context of walking groups, active school travel, movement volunteering and community gardening, as well as studying the potential for social prescribing to link people into these activities.  In our work we have also highlighted and pondered the pervasive presence of conceptions of health promotion that exacerbate health inequalities, partly by responsibilising individuals and creating stigma.  I will draw on this body of work to explore the potential for critical and fruitful collaboration between anthropology, broadly conceived, and public health scientists and practitioners working to promote physical activity.