1. Male Adventure Athletes and Their Relationship to Nature Harri Salovaara University of Vaasa, Finland
Introduction This poster examines the relationship between adventure sports, masculinity, and nature: how cultural assumptions of masculinity pertain to how male adventure athletes’ nature relationships are represented in contemporary media and consumer marketing and in the ways male adventure athletes themselves describe their nature relationships. Research Questions 1) How a cultural male/female dichotomy extends to how male athletes’ relationship to nature is represented in contemporary media, 2) Raewyn Connell’s concept of “protest masculinity” (Connell 2005) in investigating how male adventure athletes’ sometimes troubled pasts may influence their current nature relationships and extend all the way into their personal branding as professional athletes, 3) the male athlete’s body regarded in terms of “material ecocriticism” (see, e.g. Iovino 2013; Oppermann 2013), 4) the problematics of travel and consumerism in relation to sports taking place in nature, and 5) first-hand activist information on their own perceived nature relationships. Material and Method The current research material consists of contemporary media: blogs and other social media, websites and commercial material, and adventure films where adventure athletes engage in mountain sports such as mountain climbing, mountain running and ski mountaineering. The analysis of the subject uses both ecocritical theory and theory on masculinities, and this combination forms a rarely used ecomasculine viewpoint into the subject. Further, employing a “multimethodological qualitative approach” (Thorpe 2010) that combines this with ethnographic methodology and activist life-history interviews will provide both further research material and theoretical tools, resulting in what Bourdieu and Wacquant describe as a “discursive montage” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1995).
Discussion
Modern adventure sports and nature experiences are marketed as commodities, and measured by the rising amount of participants and the increasing cash flow towards large, multinational travel, sports, and outdoor gear companies, the consumption of this commodity is on the rise. As the participant numbers in adventure sports grow, so do the potential profits of the providers of the needed gear and travel arrangements for the sports, and it is in their interests to represent nature in a way that appeals to potential consumers. In this process, the participation of the professional adventure athlete especially, through the branding of his athlete personality, is important.
Results
First research results (Salovaara 2015, forthcoming) show that traditional, cultural male/female dichotomies extend also to how relationships to nature are represented in contemporary commercial adventure films through the use of a “vertical semiotics” (Alaimo 2001), i.e. clear borders between males and females coincide with equally clear borders between individuals and nature. Further, they show how the blurring of those borders through the use of a horizontal semiotics facilitates a nature relationship based on connection (see below).
Conclusions
Despite adventure sports’ rising popularity, their gender distribution is still skewed, and they are in this regard still a masculine endeavor. Yet, little research has so far been done on the bearing of gender in the formation of adventure sports participants’ nature relationship. This research aims to rectify this.
References
Alaimo, Stacy (2001). “Discomforting Creatures: Monstrous Natures in Recent Films.” In Beyond Nature Writing. Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism. Eds. Karla M. Armbruster and Kathleen R. Wallace. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia
Bourdieu, Pierre & Loïc Wacquant (1995). ”Refleksiivisen sosiologian tarkoitus.Chicagon seminaari).” (The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology: The Chicago Workshop) (Translated by Joensuu University) In: Refleksiiviseen sosiologiaan (Invitation to Reflexive Sociology). Eds. Pierre Bourdieu & Loïc Wacquant. Joensuu: Joensuu University Press
Connell, R.W. (2005). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Iovino, Serenella (2013). “Toxic Epiphanies: Dioxin, Power, and Gendered Bodies in Laura Conti’s Narratives on Seveso”. In International Perspectives in Feminist Ecocriticism. Eds. Greta Gaard, Simon C. Estok and Serpil Oppermann. New York: Routledge
Salovaara, Harri (2015). ‘A Fine Line. Crossing and Erecting Borders in Representing Male Athletes’ Relationships to Nature.’ Forthcoming 2015.
Oppermann, Serpil (2013). “Feminist Ecocriticism: A Posthumanist Trajectory”. In International Perspectives in Feminist Ecocriticism. Eds. Greta Gaard, Simon C. Estok and Serpil Oppermann. New York: Routledge
Thorpe, Holly (2010). ”Bourdieu, Gender Reflexivity, and Physical Culture: A Case of Masculinities in the Snowboarding Field” [Web address]. In Journal of Sport & Social Issues. Volume 34, Number [Cited April 16th 2015] Available at:
Vertical semiotics
Traditional Masculinity
Nature
Border Crossing
Horizontal semiotics
Traditional Femininity