A quality of interrelating: describing a form of meaningful experience on a wilderness river journey

Abstract

In this paper I identify the components of ‘meaningful experiences’ for participants on a wilderness river rafting journey. The research is phenomenologically informed, and includes interviews, journals, observations and follow-up emails from 32 participants on eight Franklin River (Tasmania) 10-day trips. It elicits individual perceptions of meaningful experiences and combines recollections to reveal the commonalities within those experiences. The research identifies two key recurrent ‘streams of experience’ that provide meaning. The two recurrent streams of experience involved, firstly, a feeling of humility and, secondly, being alive to the present. In this paper I focus on the stream of experience surrounding a feeling of humility, highlighting the qualities of the ways in which participants interrelated with their surrounding environments and the structure of such experiences. Additionally, I consider some unique elements of the wilderness river journey that contributed to the experiences that participants valued as meaningful.

Keywords:

• Meaningful experience
• Rivers
• Wilderness
• Phenomenology
• Merleau-Ponty

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcus Morse

Marcus Morse is a lecturer in Outdoor and Environmental Education at La Trobe University, Australia. He has extensive experience guiding and teaching Outdoor and Environmental Education in Australia and overseas. Marcus’ research interests are in the areas of facilitation, meaning-making and people’s experience of nature.