‘You don't understand us!’ An inside perspective on adventure climbing

Abstract

This paper presents a specific (insider) perspective of a small group of experienced male Scottish adventure climbers and explores through in-depth semi-structured interviews their attitudes, strategies and justifications associated with potentially high-risk climbing situations. Attention is paid to how participants feel that they are represented and viewed by others (outsiders) who do not participate in mountaineering and climbing activities. Climbers identify the significance of media, commercial and social representations of them as risk takers. The analysis explores risk as being socially constructed, with the associated assumptions being embedded in particular discourses. Climbers present themselves as rational managers of risk and provide examples of their risk-management strategies, with such characterizations being central to their identity as climbers.

Notes

^1.Fuller and Drawer, ‘Application of Risk in Sport’; and British Mountaineering Council, Participation Statistics.

^2.Celsi and Leigh, ‘Exploration of High Risk’; Creyer, Ross, and Evers, ‘Risky Recreation’; and Feher, Meyers, and Skelly, ‘Psychological Profile of Rock Climbers’.

^3.Zuckerman, Behavioural Expressions and Biosocial; Zuckerman and Kuhlman, ‘Personality and Risk Taking’; and Franken, Zijlstra, and Muris, ‘Are Nonpharmacological Induced Rewards’.

^4.Breivik, Personality, Sensation Seeking; Breivik, Empirical Studies of Risk Sport; Breivik, ‘Quest for Excitement’; and Zuckerman, Behavioural Expressions and Biosocial Bases.

^5.Tomlinson et al.,Lifestyle Sports and National Sport Policy; Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports.

^6.Olivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas of Participation’; Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’; and Beedie, ‘Sport and Adventure’.

^7.Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’.

^8.Bernstein and Blain, Sport,Media and Culture; Sparks, ‘Introduction’; Boyle and Haynes, Power Play; and Kristin and Kristiansen, ‘Serious Athletes or Media Clowns?’

^9.Douglas, Risk and Blame.

^10.Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity; and Beck, Risk Society.

^11.Breivik, ‘Quest for Excitement’.

^12.Stebbins, Amateurs, Professional and Serious Leisure.

^13.Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports.

^14.Csikszentmihalyi, Flow; Jackson, ‘Athletes in Flow’; and Partington, Partington, and Olivier, ‘Dark Side of Flow’.

^15.Beedie, ‘Legislators and Interpreters’.

^16.Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’; and Robinson, Everyday Masculinities.

^17.Burstyn, ‘Rites of Men’.

^18.Kajtna et al., ‘Personality in High-Risk Sports’, 29.

^19.Tejada-Flores, Games Climbers Play.

^20.Breivik, ‘Quest for Excitement’.

^21.Ericsson and Charness, ‘Expert Performance’.

^22.McNamee, Philosophy, Risk and Adventure Sports; Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’; and West and Allin, ‘Chancing Your Arm’.

^23.Ericsson and Charness, ‘Expert Performance’.

^24.West and Allin, ‘Chancing Your Arm’.

^25.Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’.

^26.Dowling Naess, ‘Life Events and Curriculum Change’.

^27.Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research.

^28. Ibid.

^29.Glaser and Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory;Strauss and Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research.

^30.Hamersley and Atkinson, Ethnography.

^31.Giorgi, ‘Phenomenology and Psychological Research’.

^32.Sparks, ‘Validity in Qualitative Enquiry’.

^33.Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods.

^34.Beedie and Hudson, ‘Emergence of Mountain-Based Adventure’.

^..

^36.Robinson, ‘Taking Risks’.

^37.Beedie and Hudson, ‘Emergence of Mountain-Based Adventure’; and Beedie, ‘Sport and Adventure’.

^38.Tomlinson, Lifestyle Sports and National Sport Policy.

^39.Franken, Zijlstra, and Muris, ‘Are Nonpharmacological Induced Rewards’; and Zuckerman and Kuhlman, ‘Personality and Risk-Taking’.

^40.Zuckerman, Behavioural Expressions and Biosocial Bases.

^41.Plate, ‘Rock Climbing is a Masculine Sport’; Wheaton, Understanding Lifestyle Sports.

^42.Beedie, ‘Legislators and Interpreters’.

^43.Olivier, ‘Moral Dilemmas of Participation’.

^44.Lyng, ‘Edgework and the Risk-Taking Experience’.

^45.Slanger and Rudestan, ‘Motivation and Dishibition’; Llewellyn et al., ‘Self-Efficacy, Risk Taking and Performance’; and Partington, Partington, and Olivier, ‘Dark Side of Flow’.

^46.Ebert and Robertson, ‘Adventure Climbing Excellence’.

^47.Lewis, ‘Climbing Body’; Midol and Broyer, ‘Towards an Anthropological Analysis’; Llewellyn et al., ‘Self-Efficacy, Risk Taking and Performance’; Ewert, ‘Individual and Setting Attributes’; and Slanger and Rudestam, ‘Motivation and Disinhibition’.

^48.Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’; and Csikszentmihalyi, Flow.

^49.Jackson, ‘Athletes in Flow’; and Privette, ‘Dynamics of Peak Performance’.

^50.Todd, ‘Ecological Rationality of Mechanisms’.

^51.Breivik, ‘Quest for Excitement’.

^52.Burstyn, ‘ Rites of Men’.

^53.Feltz and Landers, ‘Effects of Mental Practice’.

^54.Todd, ‘Ecological Rationality of Mechanisms’; and Simon, ‘Bounded Rationality and Organisational Learning’.

^55.Lewis, ‘Climbing Body’; Midol and Broyer, ‘Towards an Anthropological Analysis’; Llewellyn et al., ‘Self-Efficacy, Risk Taking and Performance’; Ewert, ‘Individual and Setting Attributes’; and Slanger and Rudestam, ‘Motivation and Disinhibition’.

^56.Stranger, ‘Aesthetics of Risk’; and Csikszentmihalyi, Flow.

^57.Lyng, ‘Edgework and the Risk-Taking Experience’.