Thinking Allowed The go-along research method
Feb 3, 2026
Alex Pryor, a politics lecturer who walked Westminster with staff and MPs to map belonging. James Fletcher, a mobility researcher who studies how people with dementia navigate buses and trams. They discuss go-along creative methods, how environments shape navigation and identity, politics of getting lost in Parliament, and how cities and digital changes affect everyday travel.
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Cognition Extends Into The World
- Cognition often extends into the environment rather than being confined to the skull.
- James Fletcher shows that travel and tools (maps, phones, landmarks) shape how people with dementia think and act.
Let Participants Choose Their Documentation
- Use creative go-along methods to let participants document lives with photos, recordings, sketches or knitting.
- James Fletcher advises letting participants choose how they're recorded to reduce strain and include diverse expressions.
Two-and-a-Half Hour Bus Wait
- Paul waited two and a half hours for a bus at an overgrown stop and eventually gave up, showing local transport failures concretely.
- James Fletcher uses this story to show how ageing residents feel the city has 'aged past them.'