Beyond Comfort: An exploration of ideas and meanings in outdoor adventures

Abstract

This thesis is about outdoor adventure activities and meanings derived from taking part in challenging experiences. The thesis consists of two parts – one academic and one creative. The academic section of this thesis is a qualitative study, influenced by poststructural theory, of three couples with children who are actively involved in an outdoor-orientated lifestyle. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the six participants in order to understand the meanings they derived from their experiences and how their ideas of risk, children and relationships affected their participation. The intensity, frequency and type of outdoor activities for participants changed to varying degrees with the onset of parenthood. They employed a range of strategies and drew on a variety of discourses to make sense of their positioning as adventurous parents. Some participants aligned with dominant notions of masculinity, femininity and risk, while others challenged these, drawing on alternate discourses to maintain and rework ideas of their adventuring selves once they became parents. The creative component of the thesis is a non-fiction book manuscript, Beyond Comfort, aimed at a popular audience including those actively involved in the outdoors as well as armchair adventurers. I went on a personal journey to critically explore ideas about adventure and the meanings behind my own experiences. Chapters cover: pig-hunting, climbing, mountain-running, adventure tourism, surfing, stand-up paddle boarding and adventuring with children. Interviews and trips with key practitioners, family and friends form part of the narrative, as well as other relevant research. Beyond Comfort looks critically at the wider context of engaging in outdoor adventures and how the notion of outdoor adventure is changing. It explores ideas of risk-taking, the ‘extreme’, and the meanings we derive from our experiences – how we construct our subjectivities, at an individual level and within the context of social and cultural understandings.