For several years, I have studied, together with professor Sirpa Tani, parkour – perhaps one of the most fascinating innovative (urban) ways of moving. Our research involved interviews with several practitioners in Finland, and we focused on experiences of urban public space, emotional attachment to space, and the mediatisation of parkour.

Our parkour research is an interesting example of how research can grow in unexpected directions. It started more or less from a footnote in my master’s thesis, and evolved in a project that took several years, produced a number of Finnish and international articles, and is still generating new results. Although it started as a side-project, almost as a sort of hobby project on the side line of my doctoral research, the parkour articles written together with Tani constitute some of my most quoted research. And the things I learned studying parkour have been beneficial in everything I have been doing since, from teaching city in literature courses to examining urban public space.

• Parkour park in Kangaslampi, Jyväskylä was completed in 17.8.2009. At 29.-30.8.2009 there was held 2 day jams organised by Finnish Parkour Association.