Historically adventure has been associated with successful, yet, dangerous endeavours that expand the knowledge, wealth, reputation, or safety of society. Previous research would suggest that the practices and stories of adventure have guided and benchmarked societal morals and ideas considered common �truths�. In New Zealand, society�s understandings of adventure are entwined with a mythologised cultural identity based on the egalitarian minded and physically active, outdoor pioneering male. These ideals were complimented and presented as a global representation of New Zealand by Sir Edmund Hillary�s successful climb of Mount Everest in 1953. The purpose of this thesis is to examine New Zealand�s understandings of adventure since 1953. The thesis centres its enquiry on a group of individuals who have obtained social distinction as adventurers, seeking to scrutinize in their adventure practice and narratives, adventure understandings that are legitimised or invalidated. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu�s theoretical concepts guide the enquiry approach. Bourdieu sought to transcend the false antinomy of sociology that presented dualist perspectives, such as the individual and society, conceptualising all practice in a dynamic matrix of relational social space. The individuals with distinction as adventurers personify the socially recognised and valued features of adventure. Equally, however, an amalgamation of features does not infer a definitive understanding. The substance of understandings, Bourdieu suggests, is in the relational strategies, consistencies, transformations, and knowing misrecognitions that frame the features of a practice in a social space. The research process adopted to examine the adventure understandings was a biographical narrative approach. The contention of this approach being, that in stories of life experience individuals with adventure distinction construct self and social meaning. The published autobiographical adventure narratives, media interviews, and related accounts of 12 New Zealand adventurers provided the initial research material. Additionally, nine of the adventurers took part in research interviews. The interpretation of the research material was framed by three of Bourdieu�s prominent conceptual ideas; the development of �habitus�, the struggle for �capital� in the field of adventre and the legitimacy of �distinction�. This interpretation was facilitated by theories related to adventure and leisure practice, the risks and contexts of adventure, and to individual, subcultural, and social identity. By applying a Bourdieusian lens on the practice and narratives of New Zealand adventurers with distinction, this thesis illuminates new aspects of New Zealand�s cultural understandings of adventure. It revealed a contested and relational struggle to have some practices legitimised as adventure and others devalued as contrived common thrills, or fortuitously survived reckless epics. A practice that typifies the thrill spectrum is �Bungy Jumping�, the contemporary global representation of adventure in New Zealand. In regard of epic practices, topical through the period of adventure interviews was the 2004 motion picture �Touching the Void�. Although this involved English climbers in South America in the 1980s, it has retained global prominence as a modern adventure/survival epic. The interpretation of this contested adventure space details the valued and recognised features that construct New Zealand�s understandings of adventure. The findings also provide an empirical basis for the equally valued misrepresented adventure understandings related to injury, exclusivity, and normalisation of practice. Additionally, the research interpretation indicates the potential for transformation of adventure understandings. Finally, although the study is situated within a specific social and historical context, it contributes to the on-going exchange of meanings about adventure, especially in relation to outdoor practice, in contemporary society.

This research explores the notion of outdoor leadership preparation in the context of the emerging outdoor profession in Australia. It explores the nature of outdoor leadership from a number of viewpoints and its relationship to the broader context. The research examines relevant literature through issue-based themes relating to an emerging paradigm, leadership, preparation, recognition and professionalisation. These themes are problematised in the context of the emerging outdoor profession. Issues of appropriate preparation pathways and the models of learning characteristic of each pathway are discussed throughout this research. The results of a mapping exercise covering outdoor leadership preparation courses offered throughout Australia in 2002 are used in conjunction with the contextual aspects to generate grounded mini-theories relating to the topic. This study uses a cross-sectional analysis of this data and by using descriptive statistics highlights the dominance of the learning pathways that offer a competencybased framework for learning leadership skills. The results are discussed in relation to both the current context and the literature. The argument that develops throughout the research is for a reconceptualisation of the learning pathways for outdoor leadership preparation in Australia, in light of the emerging professionalisation of the outdoor industry. Recommendations for changes to the currently accepted entry pathways into the emerging profession are discussed, as are the areas for further research.

<p>Sammanfattning</p><p>Gymnasieskolans läroplan, Lpf94, framhåller friluftsliv och hälsa som två viktiga inslag i ämnet Idrott och Hälsa. Mitt syfte har varit att studera friluftsliv som en metod för att nå god hälsa. Studien har gjorts genom enkäter med 179 st deltagande elever från åk 1 och åk 3. Dessutom har två idrottslärare och en fritidsvärd intervjuats för att ytterligare ge kunskap om friluftslivets hälsoeffekter. Resultaten från undersökningarna visar att majoriteten av eleverna upplever sig få en bra fysisk, psykisk och social hälsa genom att delta i friluftsliv. Dock finns en viss tendens till att en del elever upplever en ökad stress av att vara långt från samhällets alla tekniska finesser. De intervjuade framhåller också att skolans roll är att erbjuda ett varierat utbud av friluftsaktiviteter, vilket förhoppningsvis leder till att ett bestående intresse uppstår. Samtidigt menar de att de få timmarna friluftsliv som bedrivs i skolans regi, kanske inte påverkar elevernas hälsa i allt för stort utsträckning, men väcks intresset för att fortsätta, ger det mycket positiva effekter på hälsan. Slutsatser från detta är att vi som lärare måste försöka ge ett varierat friluftsliv som inbjuder till möjligheter att varva ner och ge ett intresse för framtiden.</p> / <p>Abstract</p><p>The curriculum for the upper secondary school, Lpf94, states outdoor recreation and health as two important components within the subject Sport and Health. The aim of this paper has been to study outdoor recreation as a method to obtain good health. The study was done with surveys answered by 179 students from year one and year three in the upper secondary school. Two Physical Education teachers and one recreation leader have also been interviewed in order to gain more knowledge about the effects of outdoor recreation on health. The results show that the majority of the students felt that they get a good physical, psychological and social health by participating in outdoor recreation. However, there is a tendency that some students feel more stressed by being far from our high-tech society.</p><p>The persons who were interviewed pointed at the schools’ task being offering a multitude of outdoor recreation activities, which hopefully will lead to creating a permanent interest. At the same time, they mean that the little time that is spent on outdoor recreation in school, may not affect the health of the students. But if it raises an interest to continue, on the other hand, it will have very positive effect on health. The conclusion which can be drawn from this, is that we teachers must try to offer a variety of outdoor recreation activities which offers possibilities to relax and raise an interest for the future.</p>

This thesis follows solo women hikers as they embark upon walking either the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end. By witnessing the ways in which the women hikers navigate the counter-culture of the trails, a critique of American society is revealed. This paper focuses on the differences between trail culture and normative culture, the transformations the hikers undergo, and how the hikes have affected the women’s lives.

This thesis follows solo women hikers as they embark upon walking either the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end. By witnessing the ways in which the women hikers navigate the counter-culture of the trails, a critique of American society is revealed. This paper focuses on the differences between trail culture and normative culture, the transformations the hikers undergo, and how the hikes have affected the women’s lives.

This research examines representations of wilderness, Canadian nationalism and the production of responsible and respectable subjects in commonplace outdoor recreation texts from Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Bruce Trail Conservancy and the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Drawing theoretical insights from Foucault’s genealogy and technologies of the self, post-structural feminism and anti-racist scholarship on whiteness, I pose three broad questions: How is nature understood? How is Canada imagined? How are certain subjects produced through outdoor recreation? In this research, I outline five ways in which wilderness is represented. First, I consider how wilderness is produced as a place that is above all else empty (of human inhabitants and human presence). I then examine four ways in which the empty wilderness is represented: first, as dangerous and inhospitable, second, as threatened, third, as sublime and fourth, as the Canadian nation. I link the meanings invested into wilderness with a set of practices or desired forms of conduct in order to articulate how a specific subject is produced. These subjects draw on the meanings attributed to wilderness. The dangerous wilderness can only be navigated by a Calculating Adventurer. The threatened wilderness desperately needs the assistance of the Conscientious Consumer. The sublime wilderness provides respite for the Transformed Traveler. The Canadian or national wilderness is best suited to and belongs to the Wilderness Citizen. The four subjects I examine in this thesis each draw from particular wilderness representations and specific practices in order to be produced as desirable in the context of outdoor recreation. By examining the relationship between wilderness discourse, subjects and practices in everyday texts, I illustrate how masculine and white respectability operate in outdoor recreation. Pointing to subtle shifts in the meanings and values attributed to masculinity, Canadianness and whiteness, I articulate how outdoor recreation texts produce subject positions which are richly embedded in race and gender privilege and assertions about national belonging. In addition to examining whiteness, nationalism and masculinity, this research examines how individualized practices, such as consumer activism, become understood as the conduct of responsible neoliberal citizens concerned with national and environmental interests.

Rooted in a critical dialogue that endeavours to theorize experience in contrast to the colonial impetus, this dissertation explores the lived experience of Appalachian Trail thru-hikers. As a result of this disposition, the purpose of this dissertation is to expose the dynamics associated with colonized experiences and empirically research the lived experience of thru-hikers from an ecophenomenological perspective. The subsequent approach views the activities of the lived human body as the process through which the world comes into being. Building on Merleau-Pontian phenomenology, ecophenomenology provides the foundation of the experiential self, and thus underlies the representation of the trail environment as a sensuous field of human activity where one is merged with one's socio-ecological surroundings. Explication of empirical materials from 27 participant interviews resulted in a wide range of thru-hiking experiences representing the operative essence of Appalachian Trail thru-hiking. The operative essence was identified across 4 broad dimensions: Perseity, Sojourning, Kinship, and Wild Imbrication. Each dimension comprised a dialectic which emerged from interview excerpts both congruent with and in contrast to wilderness ideology. Further exploration of wilderness ideals resulted in thru-hikers negotiating tensions related to ideological wilderness meanings and their own actual thru-hiking experiences. This negotiation allowed a broader conception of wilderness to be illustrated as a continuum of meaningful experiences. In addition, ecoliteracy emerged as an experientially driven learning process whereby thru-hikers negotiate alternative meanings of wilderness with ideological meanings. The implications for experiential and wilderness related research along with management concerns are discussed.

This research examines representations of wilderness, Canadian nationalism and the production of responsible and respectable subjects in commonplace outdoor recreation texts from Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Bruce Trail Conservancy and the Bruce Peninsula National Park. Drawing theoretical insights from Foucault’s genealogy and technologies of the self, post-structural feminism and anti-racist scholarship on whiteness, I pose three broad questions: How is nature understood? How is Canada imagined? How are certain subjects produced through outdoor recreation? In this research, I outline five ways in which wilderness is represented. First, I consider how wilderness is produced as a place that is above all else empty (of human inhabitants and human presence). I then examine four ways in which the empty wilderness is represented: first, as dangerous and inhospitable, second, as threatened, third, as sublime and fourth, as the Canadian nation. I link the meanings invested into wilderness with a set of practices or desired forms of conduct in order to articulate how a specific subject is produced. These subjects draw on the meanings attributed to wilderness. The dangerous wilderness can only be navigated by a Calculating Adventurer. The threatened wilderness desperately needs the assistance of the Conscientious Consumer. The sublime wilderness provides respite for the Transformed Traveler. The Canadian or national wilderness is best suited to and belongs to the Wilderness Citizen. The four subjects I examine in this thesis each draw from particular wilderness representations and specific practices in order to be produced as desirable in the context of outdoor recreation. By examining the relationship between wilderness discourse, subjects and practices in everyday texts, I illustrate how masculine and white respectability operate in outdoor recreation. Pointing to subtle shifts in the meanings and values attributed to masculinity, Canadianness and whiteness, I articulate how outdoor recreation texts produce subject positions which are richly embedded in race and gender privilege and assertions about national belonging. In addition to examining whiteness, nationalism and masculinity, this research examines how individualized practices, such as consumer activism, become understood as the conduct of responsible neoliberal citizens concerned with national and environmental interests.

This thesis condenses open public space on an urban site in order to create an animated environment for public use. Maximizing use of an open lot in Sao Paulo, Brazil, an elevated concrete plate layers the site into a covered plaza below with sport and recreation program above. By lifting a programmable ground surface above street level, the project maintains the ground plane as an extension of the urban surroundings. The underside of the elevated plate becomes a horizontal elevation, or sixth façade, which is the new public interface of the project. Essentially a double-sided surface that is formally manipulated, the elevated structure both defines and unifies the two zones, mediating between them while creating different conditions and atmospheres, each with their own potential to invite public activity.

Visitor activities in parks often have a heavy impact on the soil, vegetation, water and wildlife. In front country areas, the most extreme damage is concentrated on and adjacent to recreational trails. Aside from controlling the numbers, activities and behaviours of trail users, managers may choose to make trails more resistant to impact through surfacing. Unfortunately, surfacing may have negative influences on park visitors' enjoyment of trails by limiting access or detracting from the primitive setting. In addition, some surfaces may be ineffective in certain environmental conditions such as wet ground or steep slopes. Finally, the wide variety in construction and maintenance costs may make some surface types economically unfeasible. The goals of this research are to investigate the role of trail surfacing in the management of impacts from outdoor recreation; to develop better understanding of the social, economic and environmental aspects of trail surfacing decisions; and to explore a comprehensive framework for incorporating these three factors in trail management. It is hoped that this research can assist park managers in selecting surfacing options to reduce visitor impact without excessively compromising recreational experience or organizational limitations, such as financial resources. In addition to a comprehensive review of literature on visitor impact management on trails and surfacing techniques, this research employs three methods to further investigate the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing: a trail user survey, manager survey and trail condition assessment. The trail user survey was conducted at two well-used natural areas in southwestern Ontario, Canada: Presqu'ile Provincial Park and Belfountain Conservation Area. Surveys at each area explored trail users' perceptions and preferences of trail surfacing techniques in late summer 1999. The managers' survey provided insight into organizational approaches to surfacing, including construction cost and observations on recreational or environmental effectiveness. Finally, the trail condition assessment explored an approach to determining environmental effectiveness of trail surfacing techniques, but was limited by the physical and recreational variation between trails. Seven recommendations for trail managers are presented, tying in several conceptual frameworks of visitor impact management and trail surfacing decisions developed in the thesis. First, trail managers are recommended to develop a full understanding of trail design principles and alternative visitor impact management techniques. If surfacing is selected as the best impact management technique, trail managers should obtain as much information on user characteristics, environmental conditions and organizational limitations as possible. Despite the benefits and drawbacks for all surfaces, road base gravel (or angular screenings with fines) merits special attention as an excellent surface, while asphalt and concrete are not recommended for front country, semi-primitive recreation. Finally, trail managers are encouraged to share information on surfacing more freely and open surfacing decision processes to affected trail users. Overall, trail managers are provided with an approach to surfacing decisions that considers the social, environmental and economic aspects of trail surfacing, with the goal of working toward more enjoyable, environmentally responsible and cost-effective trail solutions.