Involucramiento actual de la oficina central

Ingold’s concept of dwelling has been taken up in the field of serious leisure by Nettleton who addresses the question of being-in-the-world through her concept of existential capital. To aid her analysis of social actors’ relations with the ‘landscape’ she introduces Ingold’s concepts of ‘dwelling’ and ‘being alive’. Her aim is to explore how fell runners engage with the fells through the body in ‘rooted and situated ways’ (Nettleton, 2015 p.759). She describes how, as runners move, ‘the ground is etched within their muscular consciousness. . . . they [the muscles] come to know, use and see the elements, the bog, stone, grass, [and] trods’ (ibid. p.771). These experiences lead to an embodied relationship with and understanding of the fells that are hidden from view within a dualist ontology which conceptualises the Lakeland landscape as picturesque, something ‘out there’ rather than ‘in here’. For Nettleton the fells ‘infiltrate and interpenetrate the runners and movement through the fells generates a somatic aesthetic’. This ‘pleasure in turn breeds existential capital an embodied gratification’ (ibid. p.759 italics in the original) that arises from the embodied experience of running the fells.

concept of cultural fields and its focus on divisions within them to address them as sites of shared ‘value and passion’. She is critical of Bourdieuian approaches because, while paying attention to ‘context and objective relations between social positions . . . what the body actually does, and how the body-subject is really lived within the field’ (ibid. p.199) is neglected. It is not only what the body does but also the form of the bodily experience that is important to her construction of the concept of existential capital. The corporeal and affective rather than the cognitive and rational are also brought to the foreground.

By engaging with the concepts of cultural fields and capital in the way she does, Nettleton is seeking to understand not, in Bourdieu’s terms, how ‘preferences for, and the profits of, sport are socially patterned’ (ibid. p.206), but what it is in fell running that is ‘inherent . . . in and of itself, that serves to precipitate shifts in the relations between different socio-economic and cultural groups’ (ibid. p.206). This something that is ‘inherent’ in fell running is conceptualised as existential capital, and is constituted by the bodily awareness derived from the experience of running on difficult mountainous terrain in adverse weather conditions in spectacular landscapes. The inherent aspect of fell running is so tied to the experience of fell running that it can only be fully understood by those that have experienced fell running. In her portrayal of fell running reference is made to what is experienced: decision-making, awareness, skills, knowledge, pain, fatigue, cold, exhaustion and how this leads to the experience becoming ‘utterly absorbing’ to the extent that ‘life’s troubles recede from view’ and the runner is transported ‘(literally and metaphorically) to another place’ (ibid. p.205). Here Nettleton is trying to capture and move beyond what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) captures as flow, and Stebbins (2007) as fulfilment. Like fell running, participation in the everyday life of the reserve is a leisure activity; it is therefore important to locate my study in the leisure literature and explore how it addresses questions of class, gender, embodiment, “spirituality” and ‘nature’. These elements are central to the experience of participating in wildlife conservation, and to the way in which social actors’ interactions with nature are theorised, conceptualised and analysed, and also to our understanding of how people’s relationship with nature is experienced.

Locating wildlife conservation in the leisure literature is potentially problematic as participation involves both volunteers and employees. However, as this review progresses it will be demonstrated that the leisure literature addresses this hybrid nature of participation, and is a productive way of understanding both volunteers and employees participation in conservation activities.

Defining the topic of my study as a serious leisure activity (Stebbins, 2007) positions it in a literature that addresses the nature of volunteering. Low et al. (2007 p.10 italics in the original) define volunteering as: ‘Any activity which involves spending time, unpaid, doing something which aims to benefit someone (individuals or groups) other than or in addition to close relatives, or to benefit the environment’. For Stebbins (2007 p.9) volunteering is a leisure activity involving ‘uncoerced help offered either formally or informally with no or, at most, token pay and done for the benefit of both other people (beyond the volunteer’s family) and the volunteer’. The introduction of the terms ‘formally and informally’ and ‘token pay’ begins to demonstrate the wider relevance of leisure studies to the consideration of voluntary work in a nature reserve.

Social actors’ engagement with ‘nature’ in nature reserves takes many forms: they may enter reserves to engage actively in environment and wildlife conservation, participate in specific nature-based activities such as watching wildlife, or simply experience being in the outdoors. They may also use the nature reserve as a place to engage in leisure activities, such as walking, running, wild swimming and cycling or walking with a dog, the latter being one of the most observable activities in many nature reserves. Involvement in the everyday life of a nature reserve is, for many social actors, a voluntary leisure activity but, even for the employees of organisations that manage nature reserves, their devotion to nature and the self-fulfilment they gain through their employment creates many parallels with the experiences of those participating in leisure pursuits (Stebbins, 2007; 2009; 2012; 2014).

The next section of this chapter explores the contribution of scholars who focus on the experiences of social actors participating in leisure activities in the

outdoor environment. Particular attention is paid to the way they conceptualise ‘nature’, and how they understand bodily engagement with the materiality of the environment within which leisure activities take place.