Challenges in outdoor tourism explorations: an embodied approach

Abstract

Methodological challenges are rarely discussed in depth among outdoor adventure tourism scholars. Despite the prevailing qualitative approaches in this field, and the recognition that the fleetingness of the human experience and the non-linearity and unpredictability of the more-than-human world have the power to influence the research process, the messy, negotiated and often contested researcher’s role has been less considered. In addressing this, the aim here is to critically discuss the methodological approach to explorations of the outdoor experiences through deconstructing the researcher’s role. Through renderings of the existentialist propositions of being in the world and a poststructuralist philosophy of fluidity and flux, the attention is granted to embodied experiences as a way of generating knowledges. Being situated in the research setting, space is created for interrogation of the processual dimensions of commodified outdoor journeys from an emic, researcher-as-tourist perspective. Research in the outdoor scenaria is by no means a linear process but rather a messy, complex and often ruptured journey, further complicated by the ethical concerns, struggles and idiosyncrasies of the researcher. I thus discuss the nuances and complexities of doing the embodied research and the haphazard ways of data collection. In shifting attention to more existential aspects of being in the outdoors through the process of post-experiential reflections, discomfort emerged as a critical quality of the outdoor experience. I thus illuminate the significance of embodied research and epiphenomenal discoveries in the production of new knowledges, to which greater attention, both in theoretical and methodological conversations, should be paid in the future.

摘要

户外探险旅游学者很少深入讨论方法上的挑战。尽管该领域质性方法盛行, 也认识到飘忽无常的人类经验以及非线性和不可预测的超人类世界有能力影响研究过程, 但是研究者自身混乱的、待协商的以及经常有争议的角色很少被考虑到。为解决这个问题, 该文目的是通过解构研究者自身的角色, 批判性地讨论探索户外体验的方法论问题。通过对存在主义关于存在于世界的命题和后结构主义关于流动性的哲学阐释, 我们将注意力放在了亲身体验上, 并将其作为一种产生知识的方式。置身于研究环境中, 从一个主位的、研究者即游客的视角, 仔细思考了商品化户外旅行的过程维度。 户外场景的研究绝不是一个线性的过程, 反而是一个混乱、复杂、经常破裂的旅程, 研究者的伦理顾虑、挣扎和个人喜好使之更为复杂。因此, 我将讨论做亲身研究的细微差别和复杂性, 以及数据收集的随意性。通过经验后反思的过程, 将注意力转移到身在户外的更为存在主义的方面, 不适成为户外体验的一个关键品质。因此, 我阐明了亲身性研究和超现象发现在产生新知识方面的重要性, 未来更应该多多关注理论和方法论方面的对话。

Keywords:

• Outdoor tourism
• embodied knowledge
• discomfort
• embodiment
• adventure

关键词:

• 户外旅游
• 亲身获得的知识
• 不适
• 亲身体验
• 冒险

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jelena Farkic

Jelena Farkic holds her PhD in tourism studies. Working at the intersections of adventure tourism and hospitality studies, she explores sociological and philosophical dimensions of being in and guiding through the outdoors.