Abstract
In outdoor education research, the agency of walking has received scant attention. Drawing from the author’s PhD, this study examines the meaning of walking as embodied encounters with/in nature. Using an autophenomenographic approach, the elusive question of ‘accessing’ the ‘felt’ non-representational phenomena of walking with/in natureScapes is described. This study examined the nature of walking in different Australian ecologies. The ‘meaning-making’ affects, or ecosomaesthetics of walking incorporated sensory ethnographic methods and ecophenomenological efforts to represent walking with/in nature. Key research questions asked were: what are the embodied qualities of movement experiences, such as bushwalking, as afforded by the scapes in which we move?; how is embodied knowing afforded and encountered while walking with/in nature?; how and in what ways are environmentally ethical relationships constructed with/in and by nature whilst walking? These questions were addressed in three different case studies that provide empirical and conceptual ‘layers’ of describing, interpreting and explaining the embodied nature of walking. Findings inductively reveal how walking in/as time–space movement is afforded sensorially with/in nature. These soma (body) experiences and aesthetics of nature conceptualized as ecosomaesthetics, inform an ecopedagogy of walking. This study advances the literature in outdoor and environmental education research in three important ways (i) methodologically accessing the previous non-representational affects and meaning making of movement experiences in nature (ii) reveal numerous qualities and characteristics of bushwalking in three Australian scapes that, previously, have attracted little research and pedagogical insight (iii) offer an alternative to masculinist, commodified, instrumentalized ‘core’ walking practices dominant in outdoor education.
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Data is available from the author’s PhD thesis and has not been published elsewhere.
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Notes
The Lurujarri Dreaming Trail has been held annually since the 1980s. Paddy Roe’s (elder, now deceased) aim, in creating the walk, was “to ensure his family’s continued connection with, care of, and movement through Country, while at the same time, welcoming non–Indigenous people to experience a particular way of journeying through Country” (Emmanouil, 2016, p. 10).
For clarification, tildes ( ~) are used when representing the mutually constitutive nature of terms often ‘texted’ in a dualistic or binary ~ polar manner, adopted from Payne (2015). The forward slash ( /) used for with/in, is adapted from Irwin (2003) and used to represent spaces in–between: those enigmatic, often invisible but active spaces of sensory, embodied experiences.
To conduct interviews on the Lurujarri Dreaming Trail, ethical approval was granted by La Trobe University ethics committee. Informed consent was gained from all participants. Permission was sought from the Goolarabooloo Community for approval to conduct research on the Trail.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Phillip Payne for his scholarly expertise, advice, and encouragement in the development of this manuscript that followed from his generous guidance as a supervisor for my PhD and, more broadly, his dedication to environmental education research.
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This paper is an extension of the author’s Phd. Ethics approval exists for the purpose of the PhD study was granted by La Trobe University Ethics Committee 8th April, 2016 (E15-151).
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Blades, G. Making meanings of walking with/in nature: embodied encounters in environmental outdoor education. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 24, 293–318 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-021-00087-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-021-00087-6