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River Experience: A Phenomenological Description of Meaningful Experiences on a Wilderness River Journey
Citation
Morse, M, River Experience: A Phenomenological Description of Meaningful Experiences on a Wilderness River Journey (2011) [PhD]
Abstract
Outdoor educators, nature-based tourism guides and private recreationalists make use
of wilderness river areas for extended journeys. The justification for running such
trips commonly involves the potential ‘experience’ that it affords participants. Yet the
experiences themselves are often unique, individual and difficult to describe. While
‘the experience’ is commonly used as a justification for such journeys, experience
itself does not always appear to be well understood or easily articulated.
This research project explores participant descriptions of meaningful experiences on a
wilderness river journey, in order to answer the questions ‘what forms of meaningful
experiences might occur on a wilderness river journey?’, ‘what components of the
journey facilitate those meaningful experiences?’, ‘what is the role of the wilderness
landscape itself in facilitating those experiences?’, and ‘what is the potential value of
meaningful wilderness experiences subsequent upon returning to everyday life?’. The
research uses a phenomenological approach to elucidate individual perceptions of
meaningful experiences, and then combines the recollections to reveal the
commonalities within those experiences. Using interviews, journals, observations and
follow-up emails from 32 participants on eight Franklin River (ten day) trips, the
project moves from the individual to the collective, to identify and describe the
qualities and essences of meaningful experiences on a wilderness river journey.
The research identifies two recurrent key ‘streams of experience’. These involve a
feeling of humility and being alive to the present. By interrogating the thematic
structure of participant descriptions surrounding these two streams of experience,
invariant structures are revealed. These invariant structures further provide the
opportunity to refocus on individual participant descriptions, and illuminate the
essential qualities of the phenomena described. It is argued that by understanding
potentially meaningful experiences on a wilderness river journey, outdoor educators,
commercial guides and facilitators will be better able to make use of surrounding
environs to facilitate such experiences. There is a focus on the unique elements of the
wilderness river journey that, in this research, contributed to the unique experiences
which participants valued as meaningful.
Item Details
Item Type: | PhD |
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Keywords: | Franklin River, wilderness experience |
Research Division: | Human Society |
Research Group: | Human geography |
Research Field: | Social geography |
Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
Objective Group: | Other culture and society |
Objective Field: | Other culture and society not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Morse, M (Mr Michael Morse) |
ID Code: | 73060 |
Year Published: | 2011 |
Deposited By: | Geography and Environmental Studies |
Deposited On: | 2011-09-08 |
Last Modified: | 2011-09-08 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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