RESUMEN DE DATOS Y CALIFICACIÓN DE ESTACIONES CON

The key assumption underpinning the socio-cultural wilderness research is that wilderness is a social construction, and that the role of human agency is paramount in creating wilderness meanings56. Shields (1991) was an early advocate for such approaches. He proposed that the values and ideas about a particular place (or concept) are a product of specific geographical, socio-cultural, environmental and political forces, and that they are manifested in the way in which the place becomes understood as being appropriate for certain types of activities and practices. Mansvelt & Perkins (1998) and other geographers have also undertaken research in

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This notion was promoted in the wilderness perception research, and is also evidenced in the changing views of wilderness described in Chapter Three.

this area, which has sought to understand and interpret how particular places are ascribed particular meanings as this interaction takes place in and around them.

The view of wilderness as a social construct developed from a line of enquiry in the broader field of nature and environment, which proposed that the meaning of nature is created in social and geographic space, and varies significantly between individuals and societies. This body of research came to prominence in the mid 90s, and since then, there has been a steady stream of research examining the concept of nature as a social construction, and exploring ways in which peoples’ views of nature are shaped, given meaning, negotiated and

contested57. Extensions of this research have also examined the notion that nature is a lived or dwelt experience (Crouch 2003; McNaughten & Urry 2001; Watson 2003), and the hybridity of nature (Franklin 2002; Watson 2003; Whatmore 1999).

The first significant piece of work to put forward the argument that wilderness is socially constructed was written by William Cronon, an environmental historian, in 1995. The essay was entitled ‘The trouble with wilderness; or, getting back to the wrong nature’. Like the social nature research, Cronon’s key argument was that wilderness is a ‘profoundly human creation… the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history’ (p. 69). Using the example of wilderness in the United States, he argued that

wilderness has become what it is today because of the social, historic and cultural values which it embodies, and the purposes that it serves for certain groups in society. The dramatic transformation in the western concept of wilderness (described in Chapter Two), he believes, was rooted in two pervasive doctrines in American society – the frontier and the sublime. According to Cronon, American citizens support the idea of wilderness because it serves as a reminder of how things used to be, and how things should be. Wilderness is a ‘monument to the nation’s past’, embodying a sense of nostalgia for a past way of life that the citizens want to hold on to. The dominant construction of wilderness in America derives from the fact that it embodies a sense of unique American identity, and provides something for people to identify with when they talk about ‘home’: ‘Wild country became a place not just of religious redemption, but of national renewal, the quintessential location for experiencing what it meant to be an American’ (Cronon 1995, p. 76).

Since the publication of Cronon’s article, this line of enquiry has recently been extended by a number of wilderness researchers within the disciplines of sociology and geography, who

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For further work in the area of nature as a social construction, refer to Altman & Wohlwill 1983; Braun & Castree 1998; Demeritt 2002; Dubos 1972; Eder 1996; Franklin 2002; Glacken 1967; Greider & Garkovich 1994; Latour 1993; Low 2002; McNaughten & Urry 2001 and Wilson 1991.

have sought to explore the multiple meanings people ascribe to wilderness (see, for example, Cronon 1995; Grant 1998; Low 2002; Nash 1969; Runte 1987; Schrepfer 2005; Williams 2000, 2002a). These studies have given increasing support to the idea that wilderness is socially constructed. Williams (2000) for example, emphasised the role of culture in the development of the wilderness concept: ‘it is impossible to talk about the meaning and value of wilderness without acknowledging to some degree the role of culture in giving meaning to things’ (p. 78). Low (2002) argued that the United States wilderness resource serves to give Americans a cultural identity: ‘wilderness in the nineteenth century carried the baggage of American patriotism’ (p. 38), and Schuster et al. (2005) came to a similar conclusion: ‘Wilderness seems to be one path to the creation of, and continuation of, American heritage, history, and national identity’ (p. 116). Borrie & Roggenbuck (1995) and Williams (2002a) drew attention to the strong links between wilderness and pioneering days in the Western world. They emphasised the cultural meanings of wilderness for citizens of countries with a pioneering background, and with a history of outdoor recreation: ‘Recreational use of wilderness and nature became a ritual for reproducing the frontier experience and what was taken to be American character’ (Williams 2002a, p. 123). Eriksen58 argued that wilderness and wild nature are crucial aspects of national identity in countries with a strong cultural history of outdoor recreation. He argued that the stereotypical image of the ‘down to earth, nature-loving Norwegian’ is founded on ideological and moral grounds, related to the country’s social and political history, and the citizens’ desire to distinguish themselves from other European nations:

The rural connection and love of nature are very important aspects of the public self- definition of what is typically Norwegian… A Norwegian who lacks interest in nature and friluftsliv (‘life out in the open’) may well be accused of being a poor specimen by

his fellow citizens. (Eriksen 1993, p. 9)

Grant (1998) studied the meaning of wilderness in the Canadian Arctic, and concluded that the contemporary Southern Canadian59 understanding of wilderness is an ‘identity myth’ (p. 39) which has developed because of a desire to protect and maintain the myth of the ‘frontier’ and the ‘sublime’:

Southern Canadians cling tenaciously to their vision of the arctic as a pristine wilderness, their dreams kept alive by travel brochures and coffee table books that revisit the sublime through the skilful use of colour photography. These images

continue to inspire wilderness canoeists to travel north to ‘find themselves’. (p. 35)

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Eriksen is an anthropologist who has written extensively on Norwegian cultural identity. 59

As opposed to the Innuit of Northern Canada. Grant (1998) found that the native Innuit of Northern Canada have an historic understanding of the Arctic that is totally different from the Southern Canadians’ view of it as a ‘wilderness refuge for the white man’ (p. 33).

Further, Schrepfer (2005) claimed that protecting the American wilderness ‘preserves centuries of a multi-layered, cultural history of meanings imposed upon meanings, realities laid upon fantasies, and fantasies set against the force of very special places’ (p. 8).

There have been a number of criticisms of Cronon’s (1995) article – primarily from wilderness protection advocates and managers who disagree with his contention that legislative wilderness reinforces divisions between humans and nature, and that wilderness represents a complete contrast to the ‘tarnished lands’ of human habitation (e.g. Cohen 1996; Dunlap 1996; Hays 1996; Havlick 2006)

4.4.1 Revival of the concept of ‘place’

The adoption of socio-cultural approaches to wilderness and outdoor recreation research has coincided with, and arguably helped to inspire, the revival of several existing theories, and has also led to the development of new theoretical concepts. The most relevant example in the case of wilderness research is the revitalisation of the concept of ‘place’, which has moved beyond psychological notions of place attachment towards a more constructionist approach, looking at ‘place identity’60. Critics of earlier place-attachment research (described in section 4.2.1) claimed that the concept failed to adequately account for the role of the individual and social groups in creating and developing meaning for and about particular places (see, for example, Egoz, Bowring & Perkins 2006; Kaltenborn & Williams 2002; Knudsen, Soper & Metro-Roland 2007). Findings from the new socio-cultural studies promote the view that there can be no singular definition of place because each individual interprets places and situations differently, based on a multitude of factors such as their background, expectations, activities undertaken and individual characteristics (Cloke & Perkins 1998; Massey 1995). Perkins & Thorns (2001) noted that place meanings are created through a process of

negotiation (and often conflict) between local residents and other actors - such as visitors to the region, managers and tourism operators. The focus of place-based research has, thus, shifted from attempting to define the characteristics of a particular place, towards a more qualitative exploration of peoples’ interpretations of place. The key idea underlying these studies is that places are multiple and contested – they can be ‘read’ in a variety of ways by different individuals, and need to be understood as evolving discourses between different groups in society.

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For a recent review of place concepts, theories and philosophies in natural resource management, see Williams (2008).

An important finding from several of these studies is that there are often differences in what Knudsen et al. (2007) describe as ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ views of a place. ‘Locals’ and ‘visitors’ or ‘tourists’ can have different ideas about, and attribute different meanings to a particular place. This can, in turn, affect their experiences in, and interpretations of those places, and also how they feel about any possible changes to those places (see, for example, Hull & Revell 1989; Scott 2006; Zaring 1977). It can also increase the potential for conflict between local or traditional users of protected natural areas and newcomers. This will be discussed further in the following section.

Another key finding from the recent place studies is that the interactions between people and place/space are multi-sensory and two-way – that is to say that people use their bodies to interact with the environment, while at the same time the environment interacts with them to produce meaning within that place. ‘the relationship is mutual, for places in turn develop and reinforce the identity of the social group that claims them’ (Ley 1981, p. 219). The idea that people actively participate in their environment (rather than having their actions dictated by static structures and rules) has been termed ‘performativity’ and has since been taken up by researchers in various disciplines (see Crouch 2003; Franklin 2001; McNaughten & Urry 2001; Perkins & Thorns 2001; Veijola & Jokinen 1994; Watson 2003). It is prevalent in much of the recent work on nature-society interactions, and has been adopted by wilderness

researchers in the past decade. Through this process of participation, it is argued that people are able to construct and reconstruct meaning for particular places, and identities for

themselves61.

The advantages of using a performance approach have been documented in various

disciplinary areas (see Adler 1989; Perkins & Thorns 2001; Scott 2006; Veijola & Jokinen 1994), but the uptake has been relatively slow (particularly in policy research). It has been suggested that this is primarily due to the fact that the majority of tourism and recreation policies are based around static ideas about human-environment relationships, which would be likely to be disrupted by the application of such concepts (see Szerszynski et al. 2003).