Exploring the Meaning and Purpose of Edgework: A Study of New Zealand Mountaineers, Slides of Construction

Download Exploring the Meaning and Purpose of Edgework: A Study of New Zealand Mountaineers and more Slides Construction in PDF only on Docsity! A MOUNTAIN FEELING: THE NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING AND SELF THROUGH A COMMITMENT TO MOUNTAINEERING IN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND By Lee Davidson BA Hons (Otago), MA (Victoria University of Wellington) A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Management Monash University 2006 v CHAPTER 5. THE CALCULABLE AND THE INCALCULABLE: NARRATIVES OF SAFETY, DANGER AND DEATH 167 Introduction 167 Theories of risk and danger 169 Survival strategies: staying safe in the mountains 171 Gaining experience and surviving a youthful sense of invincibility 171 Developing judgment and other techniques for survival 176 Making sense of accidents: calculable and incalculable dangers 183 Human error and the causes of accidents 184 Luck, chance and uncertainty 188 Dealing with danger 194 Mountaineering, mortality and death 203 Accepting death, confronting mortality and finding meaning 205 Summary 211 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS 213 BIBLIOGRAPHY 231 APPENDIX A. NEW ZEALAND ALPINE CLUB MEMBERSHIP DATA 247 APPENDIX B. INTERVIEW GUIDE 249 APPENDIX C. INTERACTIONAL ISSUES BY INTERVIEWEE 251 APPENDIX D. EXAMPLE OF A ‘CONDENSED’ NARRATIVE 257 APPENDIX E. 265 APPENDIX F. 269 APPENDIX G. 275 APPENDIX H. A BRIEF HISTORY OF A CULTURE OF SAFETY IN THE NEW ZEALAND ALPINE CLUB, 1950-1970 279 vi Table of figures FIGURE 1: MAP OF NEW ZEALAND SHOWING RESEARCH LOCATIONS 50 FIGURE 2: NEW ZEALAND ALPINE CLUB MEMBERSHIP 1938-2006 247 vii Abstract Mountaineering is commonly associated with feats of daring in a landscape of extreme danger. Past theories of mountain climbing, and other adventurous leisure activities, have predominantly focused on uncovering the motives for participation; and risk has been posited as a primary attraction. A number of studies have concluded that identity and meaning are factors related to participation. However, none to date have examined the dynamics by which these factors are constructed and maintained in the lives of participants. This thesis places meaning and self or identity at the centre of its enquiry into how New Zealand mountaineers sustain their commitment to an adventurous leisure activity. Thus, it seeks to address the current lack of knowledge regarding the way in which activities such as mountain climbing can contribute to participants’ sense of who they are and what their lives are about. A biographical narrative approach was adopted to achieve this central aim as, it is argued, self and meaning are constructed through the stories told about life experiences. Narrative interviews were conducted with twenty-two committed New Zealand mountaineers; and supporting materials were collected from publications and other relevant sources. The interpretation of the research material was facilitated by theories of the interrelationship between narrative, meaning and self, and the implications of current social conditions for their construction. By applying a narrative approach to the study of mountaineers for the first time, this thesis sheds new light on our understanding of mountaineering. It demonstrates the way in which mountaineers weave together the biographical particulars of their lives with a ‘folk psychology’ of mountaineering to produce a strong sense of self. In addition, it shows how these ‘mountaineering selves’ are influenced by a communal narrative, or shared discourse, about what it means to be a mountaineer in New Zealand. The research also reveals the complexities in approaches to the dangers of mountain climbing, and offers an alternative conceptualisation of this issue which does not characterise mountaineers as principally risk seeking individuals. These findings provide an empirical basis by which to consider theories relating to the impact of socio-historical conditions upon individual experience, and the efficacy of certain strategies for addressing dilemmas of meaning and self. Finally, although the study is situated within a specific social and historical context, it contributes – in the spirit of interpretive hermeneutics – to an on-going exchange of meanings about mountaineering and leisure in contemporary society. xi Acknowledgements There are many people whose support, guidance and encouragement have helped me to complete this thesis. I have been extremely fortunate to have received supervision for this project from Professor Betty Weiler and Emeritus Professor Elery Hamilton-Smith. Both were warm and enthusiastic from the first point of contact. They gave generously of their time and experience throughout my candidature, and have been impressive role models, complementing each other with their individual strengths and styles. I particularly want to thank Betty, my official supervisor at Monash University, for making me feel part of the Tourism Research Unit, in spite of my being on campus only once or twice a year. She always ensured that I had the support I required to undertake my research. My special thanks to Elery for the long talks in his wonderful library; and for being the kind of mentor who inspired by example, and gave me the confidence to feel that I could accomplish what I had set out to. I am also deeply grateful to Dr Aat Vervoorn of Australia National University, who advised me at crucial stages during the research, as both a philosopher and a mountaineer. Aat’s insight and support for the research has been invaluable. Allan Laidler read my final draft with remarkable thoroughness. I thank him for being the curious and enthusiastic reader, and the ‘nit-picker’, and for reminding me of Ozymandias. I was also very fortunate to have met Professor Bob Stebbins, from the University of Calgary, during the early stages of this research. Bob’s encouragement since that chance meeting has been greatly appreciated. Associate Professor Jenny Neale provided coffee, chocolate and mentoring at Victoria University of Wellington where I work. In addition, the generous assistance of my colleague, Dr Conal McCarthy, has helped me manage the conflicting demands of work and study, particularly during the past 18 months. My friend, climbing companion and fellow doctoral student, Jen Purdie, and her husband, Sam Bosshard, provided the perfect place for me to stay while I conducted my interviews for six weeks in Wanaka, in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. They assisted me in finding potential interviewees, shared their own ideas and organised climbing trips. My friends in Melbourne, Bernadette Wood and Michelle Goldingay, were also exceptionally hospitable; housing and entertaining the ‘kiwi’ who showed up on their doorstep at irregular intervals. Friends in Wellington provided support in many different ways. In xii particular I want to thank my proof readers: Jillian Grant, Lynley Povey, Judy Reid and Anja Stoldt. Additional thanks to Jillian for her map making skills. To my family, thank you for buoying me along and providing much needed opportunities for rest and recreation. Special thanks to my grandmother, Lucy Davidson, who always supported and encouraged me, but made me promise that this would be my last degree. In her 94th year, she is an inspiration to me for how to live a long and meaningful life. Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the mountaineers who so generously shared their stories with me. This thesis is my tribute to them, and to all who have shared time with me in the mountains and become part of my own story. 3 the position of mountaineering within the tourism industry are not the focus of the current study. In this chapter I provide background to the study, by briefly outlining the historical, social and cultural context within which New Zealand mountaineers are situated, and which inevitably colours both popular and academic approaches to understanding the phenomenon. I then give an overview of the growing body of research and theory surrounding adventurous leisure pursuits, which includes mountain climbing alongside a variety of other activities, before taking a closer look at the main themes of the research that pertain specifically to climbing and mountaineering. This overview is followed by a discussion of my research aims in relation to previous research, and the reasons for my central interest in the narrative construction of meaning and self by mountaineers. I also discuss here the relevance of Simmel’s (1959) theory of adventure as a form of experiencing, which points to the potential for a study of adventurers such as mountaineers to further our understanding of the nature of human experience more broadly. Due to Simmel’s primary focus on forms of human experience, and my desire to move away from the preoccupations of other theories of adventure, Simmel’s conceptualisation of the adventurer is an appropriate starting point for this study. The final section of this chapter provides an introduction to additional theory that has been instrumental in the framing of my research around questions of meaning and self, particularly the work of Frankl (1992; 2000), Fromm (1956b; 1994; 1999), and Antonovsky (1987), relating to the human need for meaning and its expression in contemporary society. In addition, this section includes an overview of theories on the relationship between meaning and self or identity, in particular the work of Bauman (2001), Bruner (1990; 2002) and Taylor (1989), which have been influential both in my choice of a biographical narrative approach, and in my interpretation of the research material. Theories about the problems of self or identity under current social conditions are also relevant to my interest in people with a high level of commitment to leisure pursuits such as mountaineering. The literature presented in this chapter is intended as an introduction, providing important background to the framing and context of this study. Further literature, however, has been embedded at pertinent points within later chapters. Clandinin and Connelly (2000:41) see the weaving of literature into a text, so as to provide the sense of a ‘seamless link between 4 the theory and practice embodied in the inquiry’, as being appropriate for narrative research. The unfolding of the literature in this way mirrors, to a large degree, the way in which my thinking around mountaineering, meaning and self has evolved, as themes that emerged during the collection and interpretation of the biographical narratives sent me in search of further reading in order to illuminate what I was finding. This also demonstrates the essentially inductive nature of the research, for although it was initially influenced by research and theories outlined in this chapter, I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to allow the themes of self and meaning to emerge from the narratives. This process involved using various theories as tools of understanding, rather than imposing any particular existing theory as the structure within which the mountaineers’ voices would be heard. Another characteristic of this approach has been the cross-disciplinary nature of the literature referred to in this thesis, as my search for relevant theory took me beyond the scope of leisure studies, into sociology, psychology, philosophy and occasionally elsewhere. The guiding thread has been the construction of meaning and self through narrative, and the potential weakness of not being decisively rooted in the theoretical structure of one particular discipline has, I believe, been countered by the understandings made possible by bringing a number of perspectives to bear upon one inevitably complex social phenomenon. My approach to this research has also been informed by an interpretive hermeneutic framework, which stands at an intersection between philosophy and social science (Rabinow & Sullivan, 1987). In adopting this position I have been influenced by my own background as an historian, by its use within leisure studies by Tony Blackshaw (2003), and by a number of theorists including the sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman (1978) and the philosophers, Charles Taylor (1987) and Paul Ricoeur (1992). The hermeneutic tradition acknowledges the ‘endemic fluidity of meaning’ (Bauman, 1978:229), and sees interpretation as ‘always something begun, but never completed’ (Kearney, 2004:4). In his discussion of Ricoeur’s work, Kearney (2004:5) describes the attempt to interpret meaning as arriving ‘in the middle of an exchange which has already begun and in which we seek to orient ourselves in order to make new sense of it’. But hermeneutics is not just about better understanding ‘alien meanings’; it is also a process that leads us to better understand ourselves. And so I have arrived in the middle of the historically situated phenomenon of mountaineering in the socio-cultural context of New Zealand and I have sought to make some ‘new’ sense of it. It is my intention that this sense – which has by its hermeneutic nature both been informed by and transformed my own ‘inner meaning’ – will contribute 5 to the on-going exchange of meanings about mountaineering and about leisure in contemporary society. That said, there is always, as Blackshaw (2003) reminds us, ‘something more to be said’. Historical, social and cultural context of mountaineering Climbing, as a broad term, includes a number of forms such as mountaineering, ice- climbing and rock climbing, the last of which can be differentiated as traditional (or adventure) climbing, sport climbing and bouldering. Some past studies have failed to differentiate between forms of climbing, and thus to appreciate the significance of the differences.2 My own research is concerned with climbers whose primary focus is on climbing in wilderness or alpine settings and who are generally referred to as mountaineers, although the terms ‘climber’ and ‘mountaineer’ are often used interchangeably. For some of these mountaineers, rock routes on mountains are their preferred medium, as opposed to ice or snow with which mountaineering is most often associated. However, those who climb alpine rock can be distinguished from the sport climber or boulderer, whose activities are often undertaken in more urban and indoor settings, and are primarily concerned with athletic achievement and competition. Mountaineers have more in common with traditional or adventure rock climbers, as both groups rely for their safety on temporary devices they have placed in order to protect them in the event of a fall. In New Zealand, mountaineers whose predominant interest is in climbing in mountain areas frequently also participate in bouldering and sport climbing, although this is usually for the purposes of training and fitness, rather than as an end in itself. This section situates mountaineering within its historical, social and cultural context. First, I give an overview of the historical development of mountaineering, from its appearance in Europe in the nineteenth century and its cultural significance in the context of British imperialism and post-colonialism, to its introduction and growth as a leisure pursuit in New Zealand. Following this, I provide a short introduction to the contemporary context of mountaineering. 2 Kiewa (2002) and Lewis (2000; 2004) are examples of researchers who have been explicit in recognising the importance of distinguishing between different forms of climbing. Notably, both of these researchers are themselves climbers. 8 landscapes in which the values nurtured in the young colony could be maintained. These values were encapsulated in a simple and informal environment where what mattered most was character, companionship, ‘kiwi ingenuity’ and physical endurance (Davidson, 2002). New Zealand mountaineering perhaps felt it had come of age when Edmund Hillary made the first ascent of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953, as members of a British expedition (Morin et al., 2001). In the half century since this achievement, the popularity of mountaineering in New Zealand has continued to grow5 and, in doing so, to reflect international developments, as well as its own distinctiveness. While these developments and the distinguishing features of New Zealand mountaineering are not the central focus of this study, they are part of the background and context of the research and I refer to them at times throughout the thesis where I feel that they are particularly pertinent. The most important consideration here is that, while this is not an historical study, it is situated historically in the period from post-World War Two until present day in the early twenty- first century. In addition, the study is firmly culturally situated within a New Zealand context and does not aspire to depict all mountaineers, everywhere. Such a task would be impossible, not least because generalisation would conceal significant cultural differences already identified by other researchers (see, for example, Frohlick, 2003; Ortner, 1999). Contemporary context In recent years, there has been a growing interest in mountain climbing and other adventurous leisure pursuits, in terms of both participation and spectatorship (through its consumption in the mass media), with each apparently fuelling the other. Two themes that dominate the popular literature are a grappling with what motivates such pursuits and a perhaps morbid interest in the details of disaster. For example, in 1996 when eight climbers died on Everest during one storm, both the event and the aftermath were presented in the media with a commentary of triumph and tragedy: instantaneously through photos, films and radio dispatches filed on the World Wide Web; and in retrospect in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, books, documentaries and films (Gillman, 1997). News of the disaster intensified public interest in climbing the mountain (Breashears, 1997; Heath, 1997; Nordland, 1997) and consolidated the position of ‘adventure disaster’ as a ‘hot genre’ in the mainstream media (Buchanan, 1998). Industry observers tend to agree that the media has played a role in creating more public awareness of adventure pursuits (Allen, 1987; Heath, 1997). Advertising has provided a 5 See Figure 2: New Zealand Alpine Club Membership 1938-2006, Appendix A. 9 large degree of exposure, while the marketing value of ‘risky’ sport illustrates its appeal to a youth-oriented popular culture (Johnston & Edwards, 1994; Shoham, Rose, & Kahle, 1998). As Celsi, Rose and Leigh (1993) point out, ‘high-risk sports have become a badge of our times. We are all admonished to “just do it,” and “play hard,” for “life is short”.’ It is also argued that ‘high-risk’ activities are dramatic in form, and are to an extent motivated by a dramatic worldview which is both reflected in and reinforced by the mass media, literature and film (Celsi et al., 1993; Shoham et al., 1998). One of the down-sides of the growing popularity of outdoor adventure pursuits has been crowding in fragile and remote locales and resulting environmental damage (Fluker & Turner, 2000; Woodbury, 1999). In addition, the growing commercialisation of adventure pursuits, in particular the extent to which climbing Mount Everest has become imbued with commercial interests, has attracted much criticism and regret. Both before and after the 1996 tragedy, which involved two commercially-guided expeditions (one of which was run by a New Zealand company), commentators lamented that Mount Everest had become a playground for the rich to massage their egos; that the Nepalese government regarded Everest as a ‘cash cow’, and that a ‘circus atmosphere’ had prevailed as people tried to set ever more improbable world records ("Mountains of money," 1995; "No room at the top; Climbing Everest; Too many climbers on Mount Everest," 2001). The end result, according to some, is the desacralisation and defiling of one of the world's most revered symbols of adventure (Crumley, 1996; Roberts, 1994). Thus, the powerful influence of the media, growing commercial forces and public interest in the exploits of outdoor adventurers, provide a context within which New Zealand mountaineers seek their leisure through climbing mountains. They also provide the background for increasing academic interest, to which I refer below. Review of relevant research on adventurous leisure Accompanying the growth in participation and popular interest in adventure pursuits has been an increase in research and theory in this area. Within this body of literature, mountaineering and/or climbing is included among a group of activities variously termed outdoor adventure recreation/pursuits (Ewert, 1987a, 1987b, 1989), risk recreation (Allen, 1987; Robinson, 1992), dangerous leisure (Olivier, 2006), risk sport (Breivik, 1999b), extreme sport (Le Breton, 2000), and lifestyle sport (Wheaton, 2004). A recent addition to this list is Stebbins’ (2005) nature-challenge hobby. Climbing and mountaineering have probably received the most academic attention to date, but sky-diving has attracted a 10 certain amount of interest, followed by the likes of kayaking, spelunking, rafting, scuba diving, sailing, surfing and bungee-jumping. Depending on the perspective taken, adventurous leisure activities such as mountaineering are viewed as having a range of characteristics. Common to almost all approaches, and central to many, is the characteristic of risk taking. For example, Ewert (1994:4) defines risk recreation as ‘recreational activities containing risk or danger that are experienced in a natural environment, in which the actions and abilities of the participant play important roles in the final outcome of the experience’. The main themes of the literature that treats adventure activities as a general category with particular characteristics are: personality theories of risk taking, or sensation seeking; the identification of motivations; dimensions of adventurous activity and experience; and voluntary risk taking as escape from, or compensation for, rationalised society. I consider these themes in the general literature on adventurous leisure, before turning to their more specific application to climbing and mountaineering. Personality theories Conventional personality theories maintained that the natural inclination of healthy individuals was to avoid tension and risk, and early psychiatric opinion understood participation in high risk recreation as the result of some form of psychopathology (Donnelly, 1981a; Roberts, 1994). The opinion of behavioural psychologists has now swung towards the concept of voluntary risk taking as being hard wired into the brain, linked to arousal and pleasure mechanisms and serving an evolutionary purpose (Roberts, 1994; Schueller, 2000; Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000). A prevalent approach by psychologists has been to consider activities such as mountaineering to be motivated by a personality predisposition for risk taking (Breivik, 1999a, 1999b; Farley, 1986; Levenson, 1990; Zuckerman, 1979, 1983). Personality predisposition theories generally take a mono-dimensional approach focused on individual character traits as the determinants of behaviour. One theoretical approach which has inspired a body of supporting research is Zuckerman’s (1979:10-11) concept of sensation seeking: ‘a trait defined by the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experience’. Breivik (1999a:2) finds sensation seeking theory more predictive than any other general trait theory, and concludes from a series of studies that high sensation seekers are ‘attracted to high risk sports with strong and intense 13 will come of it all. In summing up, Noyce searched for a thread which would tie all the motives together. Though not particularly satisfied with the outcome, he came up with one word – expansion – and elaborated thus: In pride of our humanity, and because we are made that way (I am not now asking why) we go for the new and so add, or endeavour to add, cubits to our stature. It is an old story, this proud instinct that brought man above the other competitors; this urge to expand into the world along paths of power and pleasure and curiosity. It is not always pleasant, but it is very human. Mankind has never been modest. (Noyce, 1958:225) Noyce’s categories provide a useful map of the breadth and diversity of motives for adventure activities, and his reflections on the nature and weight of each motive provide insight into the complexity of the phenomenon and the difficulty of generalising about motivations. Dimensions of adventurous activity and experience Vester (1987) also takes a broad view of adventure, although his interest is not in motivations, but in the dimensions of adventurous activity and experience. He identifies these as: territoriality, duration, transcendence, risk, coping and routinisation. Vester’s treatment is also pertinent because he positions his discussion within the context of leisure. Adventure, he claims, is not identical with leisure, but ‘there are many adventurous forms of leisure, and in many social worlds adventure appears to be central, such as youth sub- cultures, sports bound to the natural environment, sexual relationships, or tourism’ (Vester, 1987:247). Vester (1987:241) suggests that in adventure, the experience of time and space may be essential: ‘In contrast to continuous routine life, adventure interrupts the succession of events and seeks to establish the event that is rooted in discontinuity, seemingly beyond history’. While the experience of duration in adventure is subjective, this could be measured on a scale, from the fleeting adventurous moment to a lifetime conceived of as adventurous. In terms of the territoriality of adventure, places are ascribed by users with particular perceptions, expectations, preferences and feelings. The optimally adventurous environment is impossible to define: one individual may find adventure in a waste land, where landscape and body territory tend to merge, while another may find it in overcrowded discotheques, where body territories are closely intersected and intimate intrusion may be desired. (Vester, 1987:240) 14 In discussing transcendence through adventure, Vester draws on Csikszentmihalyi’s (1975) concept of flow experience – the merging of action and awareness achieved through the appropriate balance of challenge and skills. While many leisure activities could be described as transcendent (such as listening to music), only those which entail some risk appear as adventurous. According to Vester (1987:242), the comparative uncertainty of adventure gives it a ‘liminal’ flavour, something he believes every culture needs in some form or other, in order to fulfil ‘the romantic desire for a more fascinating state of being which is relatively independent of social structure’. In order to master uncertain situations, competent adventurers employ strategies for coping. Adventurous individuals will seek to develop their coping techniques to a higher level, before testing them with ever more demanding adventures. The romanticism of adventure, Vester (1987:245-246) argues, may be one of the last available opportunities in modern culture to experience ‘an authentic state of being’; the possibility for ‘true self-actualization, [as] opposed to the inauthentic ordinary everyday life’. As such, he believes, adventure as a form of experience ‘plays a significant part in providing an opportunity to compensate for the boredom and lack of authenticity felt in ordinary life’ (Vester, 1987:238). But Vester (1987:245) warns against perceiving adventure as ‘an extra-mundane field of experience’ and assuming a dichotomy between adventure and routine. While adventure offers, for some, an opportunity to experience ‘the essential sphere of existence and meaning’, it may simultaneously contain a less attractive character which is routinised, standardised and ritualised. Indeed, its lasting effect may be to make one more acutely aware of the tedium of everyday life, and if adventure is commercialised and rationalised ‘little room is left for risk, daring, and uncertainty’ (Vester, 1987:246). In the interests of further understanding adventure, Vester (1987:247) suggests that it be investigated ‘both in relation to the participants’ perspectives and to the broader context of contemporary societies’. For him, ‘the crucial point of interest is not the mechanics of drives and motives but the system of meaning … This does not exclude the possibility that in adventure human beings are in an emotional state oscillating between anxiety and excitement; but even more important are the different meanings emerging out of different situations’ (Vester, 1987:245). 15 Voluntary risk taking and the search for authenticity in rationalised society Lyng’s (1990:852-853) starting point is voluntary risk taking rather than the notion of adventure per se, but he focuses on a similar range of activities to Vester’s, and he is concerned with explaining them in terms of ‘a socially constituted self in a historically specific social environment’. Being uncomfortable with psychologically reductionist accounts of risk taking behaviour which assume that it is ‘impelled by factors that are constant across time and space’, Lyng (1990:854) offers as an alternative his concept of edgework, which combines factors internal to the individual and factors in the external social environment, and views such behaviour as a negotiation of the boundaries between chaos and order. To illustrate this concept, he presents his own data collected during a study of skydivers, and supports this with illustrative material from a selection of secondary sources dealing with activities which he considers comparable: climbing, scuba diving, downhill skiing and endurance sports, aircraft test piloting, motor sports, combat soldiering, gambling, prostitution, drug use and criminal behaviour. The central common feature of activities which qualify for Lyng’s (1990:857-858) classification as edgework is that they ‘all involve a clearly observable threat to one’s physical or mental well-being or one’s sense of ordered existence’: The “edge,” or boundary line, confronted by the edgeworker can be defined in many different ways: life versus death, consciousness versus unconsciousness, sanity versus insanity, an ordered sense of self and environment versus a disordered self and environment. … In abstract terms, edgework is best understood as an approach to the boundary between order and disorder, form and formlessness. While edgework involves the development and execution of special skills and has this in common with many activities, the special additional skill of the edgeworker ‘is the ability to maintain control over a situation that verges on complete chaos, a situation most people would regard as entirely uncontrollable’. In order to maintain focus and nerve under these conditions, Lyng’s (1990:859) edgeworkers feel they have a particular capacity for ‘mental toughness’. They believe that what they do is only dangerous when undertaken by people not possessing this capacity. A ‘general principle of edgework’ is ‘the commitment to get as close as possible to the edge without going over it’. The experiences of edgework, though not all identical, involve such sensations as self-realisation (or its close associates: self-actualisation and self-determination); altered perceptions and states of consciousness; and a kind of hyper-reality or out-of-the-ordinariness (Lyng, 1990:862). In conceptualising high-risk activities as edgework, Lyng (1990:864) seeks to shift the emphasis ‘away from fear, arousal, and preoccupation with death and toward the 18 more highly on sensation seeking traits than many other groups, and that otherwise they can be considered ‘psychologically healthy’ (Lester, 2004:88). Slanger and Rudestam (1997), however, have questioned the relevance and explanatory potential of the sensation seeking tests in relation to climbing. There is one study which has applied personality tests to a sample of New Zealand climbers (Monasterio, 2005). This study found that relative to the ‘average person’, ‘serious and committed’ climbers scored more highly on Novelty Seeking and Self-Directedness, and lower on Harm Avoidance and Self-Transcendence (in the sense of being prone to ‘impatience, pride and personal unfulfilment’). As with the studies discussed in the previous section, research such as this has limited explanatory potential beyond its clarification of certain personality characteristics among various populations of climbers. Lester’s (1987) study of mountaineers on Mount Everest utilised clinical psychological tests, but went beyond these to include observations and interviews. Consequently, his research has greater relevance to my study. From the data he collects, Lester (1987:175) concludes that there is a paradox between self-assertion and self-transcendence in mountaineering, and that ‘the devotee of climbing seems … to exemplify often the most exquisitely balanced struggle between “proving self” and “losing self”, with every exertion serving both ends’. For Lester, this conflict is an inner drama which is inherent in mountaineering, and comparable to (although, he suggests, much faster than) the process of psychotherapy.7 One of his subjects in particular described in detail his feeling that he was constrained and ‘burdened by his “social” self or selves’ and that this separated him from his real self (Lester, 1987:176). Lester (1987:178) summarises the reasons for participating in an activity such as mountaineering as ‘a desire to pare life down to something essential, and thereby to experience living more vividly and intensely’, and to experience a focus and wholeheartedness not easily achieved in everyday life. In a later study, Lester (2004:87) examines the mountaineering literature of the past 150 years, treating it as a collection of ‘published self-reports’ of ‘those rare people whose passion for climbing is the central fact of their lives’. Here Lester is primarily interested in the cultural context of climbing and in particular the impact of romanticism in shaping the ‘actions and motivations’ of climbers. He goes as far as to say that ‘without the culturally shared outlook of romanticism, which is still alive today, climbers would have had no way of making themselves intelligible to themselves or to others’ (Lester, 2004:89). The major 7 Phipps (1985) also discusses the relevance of adventure for the process of individuation – the unity of multiple selves into a single whole – as described by the Jungian approach to psychotherapy. 19 themes that Lester (2004) finds include a sense of freedom in climbing, and a sense of power, energy and vitality. He also identifies a number of themes relating to self within the literature ‘which seem to work towards enhancing a sense of integration and diminishing a sense of fragmentation’. On the basis of this he suggests that ‘mountaineering may have its strongest appeal to especially divided selves’ (Lester, 2004:97). The second approach to motivations for climbing, the goal-driven approach, suggests that participation is motivated by ‘an individual desire to achieve a high level of arousal or to satisfy a host of other needs and goals’ (Ewert, 1994:6). An early example of this type of study was conducted by Bratton, Kinnear & Koroluk (1979) among a diverse population of Canadian mountaineers. They concluded that ‘an everchanging mosaic of primary and secondary motives for climbing exist’, and age, ability and gender were strong determinants of motivations (Bratton et al., 1979:23). Their overall results showed that ‘appreciation of the outdoors’ was given high importance as a reason to climb, while ‘self- testing or achievement related reasons’ were considered to be of only moderate or minor importance (Bratton et al., 1979:30). Only three young male climbers felt that ‘flirting with danger’ was an important reason to climb, and in general recognition and competition were also given very low ratings. Ewert (1994:15) also takes a goal-directed approach and concludes, from his data collected from high altitude mountaineers, that ‘as climbers grow in experience, they appear to move along a continuum of motivating factors from items relatively mechanical (e.g. learning how to climb) to those items that had greater intrinsic and autotelic meaning (exhilaration and self-expression)’. In addition, his respondents rated ‘because of the risk’ as having low motivational power. On the basis of these conclusions, Ewert (1994:21) suggests that ‘a person engaged in the activity does not necessarily view it as risky or dangerous. … a more appropriate term for these activities may be adventure or challenge recreation rather than the more daredevil connotation, risk recreation’. Allen (1987) supports this view and presents the argument that it is uncertainty rather than physical risk per se which constitutes the central motivating force in such recreational pursuits. In another study, Ewert (1993) attempts to elucidate the relationship between reported motives, the outcome of events, and the experience and type of group involved. He confronts the issue of when precisely one should measure motivation in recreational studies, as such timing would influence whether or not stated motives reflected a 20 participant’s current needs, anticipated needs, or needs that were actually realised. Motives are typically treated as ‘antecedents that create behaviors which lead to desired outcomes’. However, the concept of motivational matching suggests that while people may strive to achieve experiences which fulfil their motives, if an outcome is less successful than anticipated, participants will report their most important motives as those which were fulfilled (Ewert, 1993). While Ewert’s (1993) study was not extensive enough to provide conclusive evidence of this phenomenon, he felt his results were suggestive enough to recommend further research and to question conventional approaches to researching motivations. An alternative approach to motives is taken by Loewenstein (1999). He considers mountaineering from the perspective of utility theory, seeing it as an activity that evades tidy classification within materialistic notions of human motivation, and thus as an enlightening illustration of non-consumption-related sources of utility. From his reading of mountaineering literature, Loewenstein (1999) concludes that it is an activity that is rarely thrilling and involves a generous amount of misery. Such misery, however, ‘has no real meaning to [mountaineers] when it comes to deciding whether to expose themselves to the misery again’ (Loewenstein, 1999:319). The non-consumptive motives illustrated by mountaineering are, for Loewenstein: self- signalling or prestige (the need to impress both oneself and others); a drive towards goal completion; mastery (or at least the illusion of control); and meaning: Just as people aren’t certain about who they are (and so attempt to signal, both to themselves and to others that they have desirable traits), many people also don’t have a good understanding of what they want out of life and what they value. (Loewenstein, 1999:331) The new perspectives offered by mountaineering are, according to Loewenstein (1999:332), ‘actually quite predictable. Almost invariably they involve an enhanced appreciation of human relationships and a demotion of professional and material ambitions’. That such insights occur during the act of climbing mountains is not surprising to him either, as the ‘prospect of death produces a powerful form of attention focussing’ (Loewenstein, 1999:333). Loewenstein concedes that the determinants and consequences of meaning, as a non-consumptive motive, are not well understood, although in concluding, he hints that the manner in which people invest sequences of events with meaning is through constructing autobiographical accounts of their lives. 23 [Mountain climbers] see themselves as capable, even exceptional persons whose talents are in part repressed by bureaucratic regulations and organizational regimen. … [they] are not looking for greater security, stability and certainty in their lives. … they are seeking in their leisure a test of their limits in a gratifying no- compromise situation where their behavior is meaningful and outcomes depend upon their perceived capabilities. (Mitchell, 1983:224) In a ‘rationalized world of amoral inconstancy’ mountaineers infuse their chosen leisure activity with meaning, and hence create the purpose and direction that the world is lacking (Mitchell, 1983:214). This is not possible, according to Mitchell, in those sports which have become too rationalised and institutionalised to allow the achievement of flow, or in commercialised adventure where the actions and abilities of the participants have little impact on the outcome. Heywood (1994:179) uses a cultural studies approach to critically examine the notion that climbing offers an avenue of escape from the demands of ‘an increasingly rationalized lifeworld’. Following Taylor’s (1989) proposition that two modern notions of the self – the self of disengaged reason and the expressive self – oppose each other, Heywood is interested in the extent to which sport offers opportunities for the development of the latter in a world which seems to favour the former. For Heywood (1994:190), ‘escape attempts’ remain the domain of the expressive self, and although postmodernists treat the self as ‘obsolete, an anachronism’, he argues that it is ‘a central and indispensable idea, crucial to any critique of late-modernity’s disastrous excesses’. While Heywood (1994:186) argues that ‘as a cultural phenomenon, adventure climbing represents for many participants a genuine escape attempt, a small but important challenge to the encroachments of rationalization’, he also questions how ‘adventurous’ much climbing is, given the encroachment of rationalisation even into this realm. In an examination of the ‘multiple lifeworlds’ of climbing, Heywood (1994:187-189) finds contradictions between the subjective, even mystical, experiences of climbers, and the ‘objective, sober, more detached’ aspects of the sport, and concludes that ambivalence is an ‘understandable’ strategy for coping with such seemingly contradictory features of climbing, as much as it is a reasonable response to ‘cultural life in general’. Climbing as resistance to rationalised society is also critically examined by Kiewa (2002). Like Heywood (1994), she finds the notion of being able to escape to be problematic, given the power of rationalisation to find its way into the climbing world through forms of 24 regulation, commercialisation and commodification. Attempts to resist such rationalising processes by adopting certain symbolic behaviours have resulted, Kiewa (2002) argues, in some climbers becoming dogmatic and oppressive as they attempt to enforce these codes of behaviour on all those who enter into their shared climbing environments. In this sense, Kiewa (2002) believes that the climbing community she studied can be seen as a ‘neo- tribe’, with a ‘metanarrative of oppression’, which demands conformity rather than accepting diverse perspectives and trusting others as independent moral agents. De Léséleuc, Gleyse and Marcellini (2002) give another example of territoriality within a French rock climbing community. A number of other studies consider various additional aspects of climbing. Vanreusel and Renson (1981) focus on climbers as members of a socially stigmatised subculture which bestows a social value on risk. Kiewa (2001) considers personal control within rock climbing, and the desire to experience competence and a sense of mastery. Lewis’s (2000:58) study of British rock climbing is concerned with climbing as a ‘form of embodied awareness’, with the potential to ‘thwart the desensitizing and pacifying proclivity of the body under modernity’. Meier (1976:58) explores the nature of climbing partnerships, and Pereira (2005) the perceptions of risk among high-altitude mountaineers. Further studies have analysed mountaineering literature, reflecting Barcott’s (1996:65) claim that mountaineering has become ‘the most literary of all sports’. Manning (1999), in his analysis of adventure narratives (including popular best-selling books on mountaineering), identifies the pursuit of risky experience and the social construction of risk as distinctive features of postmodern cultures, particularly our appetite for the vicarious experience of risk through narrative. Slemon (1998) explores the ways in which mountaineering tales reveal more about the ‘mountaineering self’ than about mountains themselves. Meanwhile, McCarthy (2002) examines North American mountaineering literature with an interest in connections between the human and the natural world. The final area of research of relevance to this study, and recently expanded to include a study of mountaineers, is serious leisure (Stebbins, 2005). Stebbins’ study includes a comparison of three groups of ‘nature-challenge hobbyists’ active in the Canadian Rockies: mountaineers, kayakers and snowboarders. His focus is on the meso-structural aspects of these hobbies – namely, the leisure careers and lifestyles they involve – which he identifies as an under-researched area. He also considers social psychological aspects of the activities as they relate to the costs and rewards of participation. In addition, 25 Stebbins (2005:17) expressly rejects ‘the idea of high physical risk as a general descriptor of these activities’. He ultimately concludes that for nature-challenge hobbyists ‘excitement includes courting manageable risk in the search for flow, but seldom entering voluntarily into anything more hazardous than that’ (Stebbins, 2005:134). Elements of Stebbins’ broader theory of serious leisure were touched on in the introduction to this chapter. There is common ground between his recent study and my own, particularly in his description of the ‘social worlds’ of serious leisure hobbies, and the ‘unique ethos’ that grows up around them, as well as his contention that a ‘single-minded concentration on high risk’ has led to the ‘neglect’ of other salient aspects of these activities (Stebbins, 2005:22). A more detailed outline of these similarities, however, will not be given here. Suffice it to say that the mountaineers in my study can be considered serious leisure participants in the same vein as Stebbins’ nature-challenge hobbyists. There is also overlap here with what has elsewhere been termed recreation ‘involvement’; that is, ‘the personal meaning or affective attachment an individual has for an activity’ which at a high level leads people to find ‘enjoyment from participation, view the activity as important, find it self-expressive and see it as the central focus of their leisure life’ (McIntyre, 1992:69). In the next section, I position my study in relation to the main themes and issues identified through this review of the research and theory on adventurous leisure and mountaineering. Discussion of research aims My decision to examine the narrative construction of meaning and self or identity through a commitment to mountaineering emerged from a number of issues identified in my review of the relevant research and theory. Firstly, I was concerned with the need to move away from identifying motivations. A number of scholars have found motivational research on adventure pursuits unsatisfactory. As discussed, Ewert (1993) finds the measurement of motivations challenging to the extent that some variation is dependent on when the measurements are recorded. Lipscombe (1999) considers that current motivational scales fail to adequately acknowledge the importance of the experiential perspective for recreation participants. Vester (1987) suggests that in order to understand adventure we should abandon the search for drives and motives and, instead, investigate participants’ perspectives and ask questions about systems of meaning. A focus on narrative is a means of overcoming the problems encountered by trying to identify motives as antecedents of behaviour, as Storry (2003) has tentatively attempted to demonstrate. It is also an 28 which designates it as an adventure but that adventure is a form of social interaction and the adventurer a social type (Ritzer, 1988). Forms, in Simmel’s sociology, are ‘the synthesizing principles which select elements from the raw stuff of experience and shape them into determinate unities’ (Levine, 1971:xv). Forms of experiencing, in short, are what people use to organise the overwhelming and diverse facets and events of daily life into manageable and recurring patterns. Simmel identified a number of different forms of social interaction and corresponding social types or ‘orientations to the world’ including the ‘miser’, ‘stranger’, ‘spendthrift’ and ‘adventurer’ (Ritzer, 1988:143). In the essays he wrote on each form, it was, Ritzer (1988:151) argues, ‘characteristic of Simmel to offer a profusion of insights’. Simmel’s sociological thought, according to Beilharz (2000:113), ‘is manoeuvred through the perspectives of the human condition’, and addresses ‘the most fundamental of questions about personality: what does this (or any other form of) culture do to character? What is the relationship between social form or institutions and soul, or personality? How can we connect the social outside with the human inside?’ (Beilharz, 2000:133). In addition, a major contribution of Simmel’s sociology has been his analysis of modernity (Taveira, 1991). Because of these preoccupations of Simmel, which foreshadow the theories of meaning and identity that I discuss in the next section, his approach to adventure is particularly pertinent to my enquiry. Simmel (1959:256-257) argues that the fundamental elements of adventure – the tensions between the accidental and the meaningful, certainty and uncertainty – exist to some extent within the content of all experience, but adventure arises when they reach a certain level of intensity. And so it is that an adventure is an experience, with ‘a beginning and an end much sharper than those to be discovered in other forms of our experiences’, which stands outside ‘the continuity of life’, and ‘is yet somehow connected to the center’ or ‘the character and identity of the bearer of that life’ (Simmel, 1959:243-246). As such, Simmel (1959:244) argues, adventure ‘is given a meaning in and of itself’. In their widest sense, Simmel (1959:255) maintains that the symptoms of adventure are ‘admixed with all practical human existence’, that we can take any part of life out of ‘the total context of life’, and we can examine and identify ‘the intrinsic value of that segment of life’. It is this dichotomy of value – between the accidentalness and the unity of all individual human experiences – which accounts for both ‘the wealth and the perplexity of life’ (Simmel, 1959:256). For Simmel (1959:256) a continuity runs through all the 29 phenomena of life whereby they can be seen to rest somewhere on a scale ‘on which every point is simultaneously determined by the effect of our strength and our abandonment to impenetrable things and powers’. This existential problem allows us all, in a sense, to become adventurers. Whether we view the sum total of life as comprehensible and meaningful or incalculable and insoluble may depend, he says, on the quantitative analysis of individual experiences falling into either category. Having said this, Simmel (1959:257) adds that: none of us could live one day if we did not treat that which is really incalculable as if it were calculable, if we did not entrust our own strength with what it still cannot achieve by itself but only by its enigmatic co-operation with the powers of fate. So Simmel (1959:257-258) sees us all as ‘the adventurers of the earth: our life … crossed everywhere by the tensions which mark adventure’. Using Simmel’s interpretation as a guide, it is possible to approach adventurers such as the mountaineers in this study as essentially no different from anyone else, except in terms of the intensity and frequency of one particular form of experience: adventure. Hence, the processes by which they construct self and life-meaning, and grapple with such existential challenges, arguably should not differ in form, except perhaps that the intensity and frequency of their experiences of adventure may throw such processes into greater relief. This would render them a particularly illuminating case study for examining meaning and self. This brings me to the final spur to my interest in such issues; that is, the suggestion that at this specific juncture in history, the question of meaning is particularly pertinent. As noted, it has been argued that the pursuit of adventure is growing because a lack of constancy and authenticity in contemporary society makes escape more necessary than ever before, and adventure is an antidote to alienation and meaninglessness (Macaloon & Csikszentmihalyi, 1983; Mitchell, 1983). While Maccoby (1995), among others, maintains that meaning is elusive in contemporary society, Rojek (1993:132) argues the point – first made by Baudrillard – that the problem is not a lack of meaning, but rather that the world is ‘awash with meaning’. The ways in which mountaineers navigate this sea of meaning is the theme of my research. The research asks not why people climb mountains, but how people give meaning to this adventurous leisure pursuit, and how it is integrated into a coherent ‘narrative of self’ and sense of purpose in their lives. With this in mind, I now consider additional theory relevant to my study that falls outside of the bounds of current research relating to mountaineering and adventure. 30 Further relevant theory In this section I consider theories of the human need for meaning, and thereby introduce the way in which I have approached meaning for the purposes of this study. This is followed by a discussion of theories of self and identity in contemporary society, and a consideration of the role of narrative in the construction of meaning and self. The human need for meaning It is widely acknowledged that human needs extend beyond ‘mere survival’ (that is, the satisfaction of only physiological needs), if we are to live what could be termed a fully human life (Dube, 1984). A range of needs have been identified and categorised (see, for example, Dube, 1984; Heller, 1993; Maccoby, 1995; Rouse, 2004), and included among these, in varying ways, has been the need for meaning or purpose in life. Maccoby (1995:59), however, argues that ‘All other needs are eventually shaped by the drive for meaning’. Thus, my interest here is in a number of theories that place the need for a sense of meaning in one’s life as a central – if not the central – need in terms of our ability to live a healthy and satisfying life. The theories of Fromm (1956b; 1994; 1999), Frankl (1992; 2000) and Antonovsky (1987), and related themes in the work of Bauman (1995; 2001) and others, underpin my approach to meaning and the related sense of self in this study. Frankl (1992) argues that the search for meaning in one’s life is ‘the primary motivational force’. More than gaining pleasure or avoiding pain, we are concerned with finding meaning in what befalls us, even if this is dominated by suffering. He sees a prevailing feeling of ‘total and ultimate meaninglessness’ in contemporary society as being the result of an ‘existential vacuum’: a kind of ‘collective neurosis’ stemming from a ‘private and personal form of nihilism’; that is, ‘the contention that being has no meaning’ (Frankl, 1992:131). This he believes is the result of two processes: the first being when humans lost ‘some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal’s behaviour is embedded and by which it is secured’; and, secondly, the more recent process whereby the traditions that constrained behaviour have diminished. Without instinct or tradition to guide us we are left to make our own decisions about what we should do, which requires knowing what we wish to do, which is not always easy. When we feel adrift, there are two options, according to Frankl (1992): to follow what others are doing down roads of conformism or to submit to what others wish us to do, which takes us in the direction of totalitarianism. 33 deal successfully with the numerous and inevitable ‘life stressors’ that confront them: a sense of coherence (SOC). He sees SOC as having three components: comprehensibility (the extent to which things seem ‘ordered, consistent, structured, and clear’), manageability (the extent to which one feels that one has adequate resources at one’s disposal with which to deal with life’s demands), and meaningfulness (the feeling of being ‘a participant in the processes shaping one’s destiny as well as one’s daily experience’) (Antonovsky, 1987:16- 18): Consistent experiences provide the basis for the comprehensibility component; a good load balance, for the manageability component; and, least clear of all, participation in shaping outcome, for the meaningfulness component. (Antonovsky, 1987:92) Of the three components of SOC, Antonovsky (1987:18) concludes from his research that meaningfulness is central, due to the fact that those who he felt could be considered as having ‘a strong SOC always spoke of areas of life that were important to them, that they very much cared about, that “made sense” to them in the emotional and not only the cognitive sense of the term’. Therefore, while: Many life experiences can be consistent and balanced but not of our own making or choosing in any way. … When others decide everything for us – when they set the task, formulate the rules, and manage the outcome – and we have no say in the matter, we are reduced to being objects. A world thus experienced as being indifferent to what we do comes to be seen as a world devoid of meaning. … It is important to stress that this dimension is not control but participation in decision making. (Antonovsky, 1987:92) Antonovsky, therefore, approaches meaning in terms of coherent, meaningful and self- determined action. In the course of his investigations he came across people who he considered to have a strong sense of coherence, and yet they did not see that their whole lives were highly comprehensible, manageable and meaningful. From this he concludes that people establish boundaries around what they consider important to themselves, and outside of which a lack of coherence is unimportant. These boundaries may be broad or narrow, but they must at least include, according to Antonovsky (1987:23), ‘one’s inner feelings, one’s immediate interpersonal relations, one’s major activities, and existential issues (death, inevitable failures, shortcomings, conflict and isolation)’. Beyond these critical areas, Antonovsky (1987:24) suggests that flexibility about what one includes and excludes from one’s boundaries may be ‘one of the most effective ways a person with a strong SOC maintains her or his view of the world as coherent’. 34 Indeed, Antonovsky is somewhat suspicious of people who maintain that they find almost everything coherent almost all of the time. This leads him to conclude that there is such a thing as a ‘rigid’ or ‘inauthentic’ sense of coherence. In attempting to find what distinguishes a strong SOC from an ‘inauthentic’ one, he suggests an examination of the relationship between the sense of self and the sense of identity:8 Whereas the former refers to the basic layers of the personality which provide a central purpose, a sense of abiding sameness and continuity, identity refers to the social role complex of the individual. A strong self makes possible a firm identity; but it is not basically dependent on the explicit identity in which at any one time the self is manifested. Should superior force intervene, one is likely to seek and find alternative identities. Should one find that the specific role complex has become inadequately expressive of the self, one will have the strength to give it up and locate alternative identities. In our terms, then, the person with a strong self and a firm identity will be the one with a strong SOC. … a person with a weak self may, in frenzy, latch on to a given identity in rigid fashion, seeking to allay the terrible anxieties that prey on one precisely because the self is weak. Such a person will have a rigid SOC, whose substantive perceptions of high comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness allow of no substitutions. (Antonovsky, 1987:25-26) Interestingly, Antonovsky (1987:26) concludes that the only way to identify a rigid as opposed to a strong SOC would be through ‘serious qualitative depth research’. He also raises the possibility that whereas work life may have once been of high relevance to one’s sense of coherence, in a post-industrial society with a diminishing work ethic, a new pattern may be emerging where ‘One does one’s work, defines it as at least giving one the wherewithal to turn to important things, and then turns to experiencing life’ (Antonovsky, 1987:118). Antonovsky also emphasises that his is not a theory of personality, but a ‘dispositional orientation’, which he believes becomes more or less established in early adulthood. In this sense it is perhaps comparable to Simmel’s contention that we consider our lives in terms of the overall tally of experiences that we have found meaningful and comprehensible, compared to those that have been for us insoluble and incalculable. Both Fromm (1956b; 1999) and Frankl (2000:140) argue that contemporary society frustrates the human need ‘to find and fulfil meaning in our lives’. Bauman (1995; 2000; 2001) has made a particular study of the sociological conditions that render meaning problematic, and the ways in which people cope with this precarious situation (Smith, 1999). He also sees the spur to meaning as originating in the knowledge of our mortality, and citing Becker, declares that society is ‘a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning’ (Becker in Bauman, 2001:2). So it is that Bauman (2001) sees societies as ‘factories of meanings’ necessitated by the need to transcend the 8 Antonovsky is drawing here on the theory of the psychologist Heinz Kohut (1982). 35 ‘grotesque fate’ of humankind. He also sees the anxiety and ambivalence of the current age as having been prompted by the freedoms gained through the processes of individualisation and the privatisation of our lives, such that we would often gladly accept the offer of some ‘great simplification’. In the wake of modernity, Bauman (2001:70) argues, the shape that this sought-after simplification comes in is the ‘neo-tribal and fundamentalist sentiments’, whose appeal is ‘the promise to put paid to the agony of individual choice by abolishing the choice itself; to heal the pain of individual uncertainty and hesitation by finishing off the cacophony of voices which makes one unsure of the wisdom of one's decisions’. According to Bauman, modernity and its aftermath have been particularly inhospitable to a sense of coherence, such as Antonovsky describes. Modernity’s ‘overwhelming and endemic urge for creative destruction’, its unrelenting desire to keep clearing the decks in order to make way for the new in the name of progress, has resulted in a sense of the ‘crumbling of time’, of fragmentation, of life ‘lived in episodic time’ rather than as a ‘continuous, cumulative and directional’ whole (Bauman, 2000, 2001:103, 127). Under these conditions, when events are disconnected episodes, a ‘cohesive historical narrative’ becomes possible only after death: ‘as long as it is being lived, each episode has only itself to supply all the sense and purpose it needs or is able to muster to keep it on course and to see it through’ (Bauman, 2001:127). Bauman has looked to the Holocaust for answers to questions about ‘the human condition in modernity’9 (Beilharz, 2000:88), as this was the rationalisation and bureaucratisation of society taken to its terrifying, yet logical extreme. What it leaves us with is a growing if uneasy resignation to the idea that ‘not only is Being underpinned by Chaos and Absurdity rather than pre-ordained Order and Meaning, but it is going to stay that way for the duration, and nothing we can do will change it’ (Bauman, 1995:23). ‘Moderns’ lived their lives as pilgrims: their trajectory towards a fixed destination was established at an early stage – both because it could be and because it had to be – and they could head off with reasonable confidence that the end-point would not shift, nor would their path deviate unexpectedly (Bauman, 1995). But the world is no longer conducive to such pilgrimages, 9 Bauman also has a personal connection to the Holocaust, as his wife survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Others with an interest in meaning and the human condition have a connection to the Holocaust. Antonovsky was born in the US, served in the US army during WWII and immigrated to Israel in the 1960s. His work included, and in many ways was inspired by, the experiences of Holocaust survivors. Frankl survived Auschwitz and developed his ideas with reference to his experiences. Fromm was a German-Jew who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and also discusses the psychology of Nazism extensively (Fromm, 1973, 1994). 38 distinctive selves, but denies us the means by which to evaluate the adequacy of what we find. As Bauman (1988:62) puts it: ‘Self-construction of the self is, so to speak, a necessity. Self-confirmation of the self is an impossibility’. The solution proffered by modern capitalist society to the enigma of self-construction, Bauman suggests, is an endless array of consumer goods capable of functioning as ‘symbols of identity’, conferring on their owners an identifiable image with which their self can be associated. The seeming abundance, range of choice and ease of adoption of such off-the-shelf identities is countered by their lack of permanence – with a foundation often no more solid than the whims of fashion, identities become ‘successively worn masks’ – ‘continuously negotiated, adjusted, constructed without interruption and with no prospect of finality’ (Bauman, 1988:41, 2001:87). Identities are taken on only tentatively so that they can be switched with ease when they outlive their usefulness. The implications of such processes for our leisure lives are described by Rojek (1993:212- 216): We shrink from deep commitments and cast our energies in leisure out toward reassuring, consumerist experience which requires passive involvement or transitory relationships which avoid putting ourselves on the line. … Dedicated leisure activity is quite rare, which is why the compulsive hill-walker, the serious amateur musician, or even the serious reader of fiction, stand out so starkly. … The ephemeral, the fugitive and the contingent describe our experience of leisure just as they are at the heart of the phenomenology of Modernity. Against such undercurrents of anxiety and ‘liquidity’, the struggle to construct meaning and self goes on. While many battles may be lost, the war is by no means over. As the preceding discussion suggests, we either construct self and meaning in some form or other, or we suffer some unpleasant consequences. A primary tool at our disposal is narrative. The narrative construction of meaning and self Articulation of life stories is the activity through which meaning and purpose are inserted into life. (Bauman, 2001:13) Narrative plays a prominent role in the construction of meaning and the process of self- making (Bruner, 1990, 1996; Funkenstein, 1993; Holstein & Gubrium, 2000). Stories are about ‘what things mean’ to us (Bruner, 1990:51). We understand our lives, according to Taylor (1989:47), as an unfolding story: in order to have an understanding of who we are we have to have a sense of ‘how we have become, and of where we are going’, and a coherent narrative provides such an understanding. Bruner (1990:20), a psychologist who 39 rejects biological determinism as an explanation for human behaviour, arguing instead that ‘culture and the quest for meaning within culture are the proper causes of human action’, explores the relationship between narrative and the way in which we ‘achieve’ self or identity: We achieve our personal identities and self-concept through the use of narrative configuration, and make our existence into a whole by understanding it as an expression of a single unfolding and developing story … Self, then, is not a static thing or a substance, but a configuring of personal events into an historical unity which includes not only what one has been but also anticipations of what one will be. (Polkinghorne in Bruner, 1990:116) The work of the neuroscientist Damasio on the role of memory and narrative in the making of the self resonates with the analyses of Taylor and Bruner. In his enquiry into the biological underpinnings of consciousness, Damasio (1999:11) explores the mental patterns which give us ‘the sense of self in the act of knowing’. Damasio argues that there are two kinds of consciousness: the core consciousness through which we have a sense of self in the here and now – a transient core self; and an extended consciousness which allows us a complex awareness of ourselves – an autobiographical self – with a lived past and an anticipated future based on a stash of ‘systematized memories of situations in which the core consciousness was involved’ (Damasio, 1999:17). This ‘organised record of the main aspects of an organism’s biography’ Damasio (1999:18) terms the autobiographical memory. This storehouse grows throughout our lives as more experiences are added to it, and to some extent it can be reshaped in the light of new experiences. There still appears to be much that is not known about the complex process by which experience is stored in, and retrieved from, the autobiographical memory; certainly it is not always something over which we have conscious control.11 Not all memories are treated equally. Some are available for immediate and consistent retrieval, while others lie out of reach, for long periods, or forever. In the reconstruction process involved in retrieval: some autobiographical events may not be fully reconstructed, may be reconstructed in ways that differ from the original, or may never again see the light of consciousness. Instead, they may promote the retrieval of other memories which do become conscious … [and] may appear unmotivated, although a web of connections does exist sub rosa, reflecting either the reality of some moment lived in the past or the remodeling of such a moment by gradual and unconscious organisation of covert memory stores. (Damasio, 1999:227) 11 See for example the discussion by Reid (2005:685), who states that our brain hemispheres are not only ‘capable of making selective contributions to experience, they are adept at hiding that they do this’. A life event, he claims, may be recognised in our brains as being significant, without our conscious awareness, such that this significance becomes apparent to us only in the process of recollection. 40 Levi (1987:15), speaking of coming to terms with his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, noted that the need to tell one’s story to others can have the ‘character of an immediate and violent impulse’.12 He was also acutely aware, however, of ‘the problematic rapport between narration and reality’ (Belpoliti, 2001:xxiii). For Bruner (2002:22) it is an ‘ontological dilemma’: this problem of the extent to which we may have unintentionally ‘imagined’ the stories we tell. Moreover, any criteria by which one might judge the ‘rightness’ of a life narrative are decidedly ‘slippery’ (Bruner, 2004). But then again, there is not necessarily a wholly ‘correct’ version of the story of self, and largely because we are not following any script; we are improvising, making do, trying to keep all the balls in the air at the same time. And this requires that we be bricoleurs (Lévi-Strauss’s term), as Bruner (2002) points out, taking what we can from what has happened to us, and to those around us, plundering our cultural stock of stories and cobbling together something that will do, in the meantime. Memory, therefore, is vital, even if in some sense ‘unreliable’. Impaired memory of the past can result in dysnarrativia, a neurological disorder which causes a ‘severe impairment in the ability to tell or understand stories’, and which is ‘highly disruptive of one’s sense of self’ (Bruner, 2002:86). In one of its manifestations, Korsakov’s syndrome, both memory and affect are so severely impaired that ‘selfhood virtually vanishes’. And so, while our life stories are undoubtedly selective re-tellings – they do not contain everything that happens to us – it seems safe to assume that they do contain those things which are most important to our sense of who we are, and that they may also gloss over the things that are not. It can also be said with some confidence that the end result – the autobiographical self – is the product not only of a narrative fashioned from our life experiences, but also our innate and acquired personality traits, intelligence, knowledge, and our social and cultural environment. MacIntyre (1981:202-203) is another theorist who examines the ‘narrative unity’ of individual lives. He describes the nature of the narrative concept of self-hood as being ‘two-fold’: ‘I am the subject of a history that is my own and no one else’s, that has its own peculiar meaning’ and ‘I am not only accountable, I am one who can always ask others for an account, who can put others to question. I am part of their story, as they are part of mine. The narrative of any one life is part of an interlocking set of narratives’. 12 Bruner (1999:7) argues that the ‘Willingness or eagerness to “story” one’s life is tantamount to the desire to live’. 43 Chapter 2 The research process: approach, methods and interpretation Introduction Chapter 1 outlined the background to the study, presenting my aims and the reasons for framing them around the narrative construction of self and meaning. I noted that a biographical narrative approach was the most appropriate methodology for an enquiry of this nature, and that no documented studies of mountaineering had adopted this approach. Past methodological approaches to the study of mountaineering have included the use of questionnaires (Bratton et al., 1979; Ewert, 1993, 1994) including various personality tests (Lester, 1987; Monasterio, 2005; Rossi & Cereatti, 1993), standard qualitative interviewing (Kiewa, 2001, 2002; Macaloon & Csikszentmihalyi, 1983; Pereira, 2005), and a variety of other methods drawing on ethnographic and cultural studies. While a number of studies have analysed mountaineering narratives in the form of published biographies and autobiographies (Lester, 2004; Loewenstein, 1999; McCarthy, 2002; Slemon, 1998), written accounts of life stories differ in nature from oral accounts, having been produced for different purposes and under different conditions (Linde, 1993). Beginning in the 1980s, however, narrative approaches to research have gained an increasingly enthusiastic following (Elliott, 2005). Narrative studies have begun to appear in the related fields of tourism (for example Elsrud, 2001; Noy, 2004), and sport sociology (for example Denison, 1996; Denison & Rinehart, 2000). In Chapter 1, I referred to the hermeneutic approach which has informed this enquiry. Strict adherence to the principles of hermeneutics may lead one to eschew the use of a conventional social science ‘method’, holding such methods and their meticulous documentation and vigorous defence to be ontologically and epistemologically flawed (Blackshaw, 2003; Rabinow & Sullivan, 1987). I have nonetheless trod a more conventional path in conducting and writing up this study. In this chapter I outline my research process, beginning with an overview of the biographical narrative approach and a discussion of its appropriateness for this research. Following this I describe the research population and the specific methods used to gather my empirical material.13 In the final section I ‘tell the story’ of the process of interpreting this material, so as to set the scene for the chapters that follow. This involves an introduction to the ‘protagonists’ of this study 13 Following Jennings (2005), and in accordance with the interpretive research paradigm in which this study is situated, I refer to empirical materials instead of data, and use the term interpretation, rather than analysis. 44 (which include myself as researcher) and a discussion of the interactions that led to the production of the empirical material presented in this thesis, and impacted upon its interpretation. To close this chapter I reiterate the advantages of my chosen methodology, and summarise a number of limitations and problematic issues which should be borne in mind as the reader proceeds to my discussion of findings. The biographical narrative approach Narrative research is underpinned by the claim that we are, by nature, meaning-making beings, seeking coherence amidst chaos and multiplicity (Cary, 1999), through the means of narrative (Bateson, 1990; Ceglowski, 1997; Roberts, 2002; Widdershoven, 1993). In addition, this meaning-making process is intimately connected to, even necessitated by, the ways in which we interpret and ‘make’ our selves, and our identities (Denzin, 2001a; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Rosenwald & Ochberg, 1992; Schwandt, 1999; Tierney, 2000). Indeed, these are not discrete processes – they happen as we speak, as we narrate: ‘there is no silent act of comprehension followed by a public recitation’ (Schwandt, 1999); ‘Life both anticipates telling and draws meaning from it’ (Ellis & Bochner, 2000:746). Denzin (2001a:60) goes so far as to suggest that ‘we do things because of the characters we become in our tales of self’. Similarly Ellis and Bochner (2000:746) maintain that: In the final analysis, the self is indistinguishable from the life story it constructs for itself out of what is inherited, what is experienced, and what is desired. ... thus personal narrative is part of the human, existential struggle to move life forward. It should also be noted that our stories are not frozen in time. They are revised and re- created in a multitude of ways, each time we retell them. Hence, the narrative approach treats interview material, not in the ‘realist’ tradition, as directly ‘mirroring’ a fixed, external reality, but as collections of stories and narratives that give access to the descriptions and explanations with which people make sense of their lives (Denzin, 2001b). Within these stories, we can also find traces of the cultural (and subcultural) meanings with which people construct them (Linde, 1993; Silverman, 2000), and the social worlds within which such a project may take place (Miller & Glassner, 1997). Elsrud (2001) contends that cultural narratives are articulated in the magazines, books and other media that surround us, and that these pre-existing narrative structures become the resources with which narrators construct coherent accounts of their lives, in turn through diaries, articles, books and verbal accounts. It may also be the case that collective narratives of social groups can come to challenge more mainstream cultural stories (Miller & Glassner, 1997). 45 The primary advantage of collecting biographical narratives in order to achieve the aims of my research rests upon the claim by narratologists that people reveal details about assumptions, purposes and feelings in narratives that they will not reveal if asked directly – particularly if these are controversial or exist at an unconscious level (Wengraf, 2001). When asked directly, people have the opportunity to give consciously-constructed answers – in the manner of justifications or defences – or desired ‘presentations of self’ as described by Goffman (1959): precisely by what it assumes and therefore does not focus upon, narrative conveys tacit and unconscious assumptions and norms of the individual or of a cultural group. At least in some respects, they are less subject to the individual’s conscious control. (Wengraf, 2001:115) Such stories allow the researcher ‘to consider both the conscious and the unconscious contexts and conditions of action as well as the observed and the less observed consequences of action’ (Wengraf, 2001:118). The biographical narrative method of interviewing also assumes that any life history will contain a ‘gestalt’, or theme, which underpins the way in which the narrator reconstructs past events (Rosenthal, 1993). This theme may not necessarily be consciously accessible to the individual, but can be revealed if the story is told in full, according to the design of the teller, rather than being distorted by the concerns of the interviewer (Hollway & Jefferson, 1997). The richness of the data that can be achieved by this means, along with the potential to also attend to and learn from contradictions and consistencies which may be contained within a story, are highly valued by the biographical interviewer (Hollway & Jefferson, 1997). This approach deviates significantly from a positivist interest in, and seeking out of, motivations as a means of explaining behaviour (Denzin, 2001a). The neatly conceived logic of causation that lies behind motivational research is deceptive in its simplicity, and is challenged by biographical researchers for the reason that, if we ask people about their motivations, it is not always easy to know what we are getting. As Mills (1940) observes, the notion of motives does not arise until they are questioned, either by an individual, when their actions are frustrated, or by a curious other (or earnest interviewer). Then, once the process of questioning motives is underway, the ‘differing reasons men give for their actions are not themselves without reasons. … Motives are words. … They stand for anticipated situational consequences of questioned conduct’ (Mills, 1940:904-905). 48 There is no way of knowing precisely the number of people fitting these criteria, but two sources exist which can provide certain indications. Firstly, there are the membership data of the New Zealand Alpine Club (NZAC). This body is the only national club for climbers/mountaineers in New Zealand. There are a number of regional mountaineering clubs, and a large number of tramping clubs which include mountaineers among their membership, but as members of these smaller clubs may also belong to the NZAC, the membership data of the national group are the best available indicator of the numbers of mountaineers in New Zealand. It must be taken into consideration, however, that some mountaineers are not members of this club, that an unknown number of club members are not active climbers, and that club membership includes professional mountain guides. In 2006 the NZAC membership stood at 2906, of which 631 (or roughly one fifth) were women.15 New Zealand’s population is currently 4.1 million, so NZAC membership represents a very small percentage of the population. Another source of statistical information about climbers in New Zealand is a study carried out by the market research company NFO/CM Research16 in 2001 (Diamond, 2001). The data collected in this random, nation-wide telephone survey with 14,400 respondents suggested that half a percent of the New Zealand population considered themselves ‘regular’ climbers. While this is a higher figure than NZAC membership, it also includes those who are regular sport climbers and boulderers,17 and thus represents a broader population than the focus of my research. The study concluded that 79% of regular climbers were less than 34 years old, 54% were single, 81% were male (indicating a similar gender ratio to NZAC membership), and that climbers were ethnically representative of the New Zealand population. My study involved the collection of detailed qualitative materials and this necessitated the involvement of a relatively small number of participants. Due to this limitation, I was not aiming to gain a statistically representative sample of my research population. However, the available data on climbers in New Zealand provide an interesting ‘benchmark’ against which to consider the characteristics of my interviewees. strong distinction is made between those who consistently climb with guides and those who do not. I also did not feel that my sample would be large enough to include both groups and attempt a meaningful comparison. For these reasons, climbers who use guides were excluded from the current study. 15 See Appendix A for a graph showing NZAC membership numbers since 1938. The NZAC was established in 1891, with a period of inactivity between 1900 and 1931. Consistent annual membership figures have been available since 1938. 16 Now renamed TNS. 17 Personal communication: Carol Diamond, Project Manager, NFO/CM Research, 8 November 2002. 49 The interviews In this section I discuss the interviews, including the sampling methods, the sample size, the characteristics of the interviewees, the structure of the interviews and, finally, other possible methods for collecting narratives. Selection of interviewees The principles of purposive and theoretical sampling18 were followed in the process of selecting interviewees fitting the criteria of my research population. Mountaineers were sought across a range of ages, gender, length of climbing career and family/relationship situations. Also sought were interviewees from backgrounds that reflected New Zealand’s multi-cultural and migrant populations. Technical ability was not a criterion in my selection, but targeting people with a high level of commitment resulted in a sample of mountaineers who tended to climb (or have climbed) at a high level of difficulty. Potential participants were identified via the ‘snowball technique’, beginning with contacts already known to me through my personal involvement in the New Zealand climbing community. Once I began interviewing, further potential contacts were given to me by interviewees. As illustrated above, the population of mountaineers in New Zealand is small, and the number who could be considered committed mountaineers is even smaller. Consequently this small group, though geographically dispersed and mobile, is generally tight-knit and its members well-known to each other. The area of New Zealand that has the highest concentration of committed mountaineers is, for obvious reasons, in and around the Southern Alps in the South Island. In order to undertake the interviews I decided to base myself initially for six weeks in the small town of Wanaka, near the Southern Alps. This area is a popular region for mountaineers to live in due to its alpine setting, its close proximity to the mountains, and its local tourism industry (including ski resorts) which provides seasonal work. During these six weeks I stayed with a friend and climbing partner of mine, and her husband, who is a professional mountain guide. Over this period a number of climbing friends and acquaintances passed through to visit my friends, as they came and went on mountaineering trips. This gave me 18 ‘Sampling on the basis of emerging concepts, with the aim being to explore the dimensional range or varied conditions along which the properties of concepts vary’ (Strauss & Corbin, 1998:73). See also Denzin (1970). Figure 1: Map of New Zealand showing research locations 50 53 interpretation and contextualisation of those collected, using the methods described in later sections of this chapter. Characteristics of the interviewees Individual profiles of each of the twenty-two interviewees will be given in the final section of this chapter. In this section I give a brief overview of the characteristics of my sample. Fourteen were male and eight were female. While the proportion of females interviewed exceeds the proportion of females in the general mountaineering population, I interviewed eight in order to ensure that a range of female perspectives was included in the sample in relation to age, length of climbing career and family/relationship situations. With regard to the related characteristics of age and length of climbing career, I decided to approach the selection of interviewees in terms of three broad age/career stage categories.20 As most of the interviewees began climbing in their late teens or early twenties, I considered those aged 20 to 35 to be in the early stages of their careers as mountaineers. Six of the interviewees were in this age bracket, with the youngest being in her early twenties and the least experienced having climbed for approximately 4-5 years. Ten of the interviewees were in the mid-career bracket, between 35 and 50 years of age. A further six were over 50 (with the oldest being in his early seventies) and I considered these to be in their late career. This range allowed a reasonable representation at each level, while also reflecting a focus on those who have successfully sustained their commitment to mountaineering over the course of various life stages. By including those in the late stages of their mountaineering careers, several of those I interviewed were now far less active than they once had been. Three interviewees in particular had replaced all but some relatively undemanding mountain climbing with activities such as trekking, rafting, cycle touring and flying in the mountains. However, all still considered themselves mountaineers in the sense that will become apparent in later chapters. Thirteen of the interviewees were in long-term committed relationships (either married or de facto), and nine were single. Five of the six in the youngest age bracket were single. 20 These are only very broad and somewhat arbitrary categories that I have used to give a general sense of the age/career range of the mountaineers. However, there is some overlap as one of the interviewees began climbing at a very young age, and another somewhat later than the majority, which means that they have more/less experience (respectively) than others around their own age. 54 Exactly half of the interviewees had children. Of the eleven without children, six were under 35 years of age. The employment situations of the interviewees were quite diverse, but the majority fell into two broad groups: those with professional careers or skilled work, which require a relatively high degree of commitment in terms of time, and possibly ‘occupational devotion’ (Stebbins, 2005); and those with ‘throwaway jobs’ (Stebbins, 2005:130), which give a much greater degree of flexibility as they are ‘relatively easily acquired and abandoned’, including seasonal and casual work. Eight of the interviewees were in Stebbins’ first category. Six supported themselves predominantly through a variety of seasonal forms of employment, and fitted Stebbins’ second category. The remainder fell somewhere between these two ends of the spectrum. Four were involved in skilled work, but were essentially self-employed, which allowed them a high degree of flexibility. A further two had previously been engaged in professional careers, and had ‘downshifted’ (Breakspear & Hamilton, 2004) to part-time and/or less skilled work in order to suit their mountaineering lifestyles. This work nevertheless still provided a degree of satisfaction and was on-going in nature. One was retired and another a part-time student and sickness beneficiary. Five of my interviewees were immigrants, from Switzerland, England, Ireland, Australia and South-east Asia. For four of these five, mountaineering opportunities were at least part of the attraction of coming to New Zealand. While the nation-wide survey discussed above indicated that the climbing population was ethnically representative, there are very few mountaineers from New Zealand’s indigenous Maori population.21 Unfortunately, I was not able to interview any Maori mountaineers, and this is a limitation of my study. Structure of the interviews While interviewing techniques vary widely from highly structured to more open-ended formats, in a typical interview, Bruner (1990:115) explains: we expect respondents to answer our questions in the categorical form required in formal exchanges … we typically interrupt our respondents when they break into stories: they do not fit our conventional categories. So the human Selves that emerge from our interviews become artificialized by our interviewing techniques.22 21 Two per cent of NZAC members whose ethnicity is recorded are Māori (Personal communication, Carol Diamond, NZAC National membership and Promotions Convenor, 7 November 2002). 22 See also Mishler (1986) for a discussion of how the typical interview format tends to suppress stories. 55 In an attempt to avoid this ‘artificialisation’, the interviews in this study followed a structure informed by the principles of the biographical narrative in-depth method as described by Wengraf (2001). Such interviews are organised into three basic phases: Phase one: a narrative prompted by one initial question from the researcher. Any further interventions from the researcher must be non-directional. It is intended that this narrative should be told according to the participant’s own ‘system of relevancy’, rather than that of the interviewer, as would be implicit in a structured set of questions (Wengraf, 2001). Phase two: following the initial undirected narrative, the researcher asks ‘narrative- pointed’ questions, designed to elicit further narratives based upon the themes introduced in phase one. Phase three: in the final phase the participant can be asked for points of clarification, and other direct, non-narrative and follow-up questions on issues not covered in the initial two phases. While Wengraf (2001) recommends that the third phase of the interview be conducted at a later date, after the initial analysis of the first two phases, I distilled this process down to one three-phase session, sacrificing Wengraf’s methodical and time consuming process for pragmatic reasons. As described above, my participants were spread over a wide geographical area (see Figure 1, page 50) and I often had to organise interviews to fit with their ‘rest days’ between climbing, which were frequently weather dependent. At times I would have half a day’s notice to drive up to four hours for an interview. The logistics required to organise a second interview with many of the participants after a regulated interval were beyond my resources. During the initial six weeks of interviewing I covered almost 4,000 kilometres by road. Later I flew back twice to the South Island, and a further interview in the North Island involved two days travel by road. Frohlick (2003) highlights the need for a ‘flexible methodology’, not only for research on ‘itinerant subjects’, but also increasingly in the general context of globalisation. In this context, an ‘ideal’ method often has to give way to the practicalities of time and space. I began my interviews with a narrative-prompting question along these lines: Ok. To start with I would like you to tell me about your climbing, starting from when you first became interested in climbing and then how your climbing developed from there. I’m particularly interested in the trips or experiences that you think have been particularly important or memorable. Or maybe there have 58 exist at the cultural and subcultural level about mountaineering. They provide important background and context to my interpretation of the personal biographical narratives, and my understanding of pertinent influences. I have read extensively about mountaineering over the past twenty years out of both personal and academic interest. Specific to this study, I read a number of books recommended to me by mountaineers I had spoken with, as well as those that were mentioned by interviewees as having been influential for them. While this literature provided a useful ‘backdrop’ to the study, only some of it is directly referred to, where appropriate, within the thesis. I also took the opportunity to view mountaineering and climbing videos and films where these were topical. In particular, I purchased a copy of The Fatal Game, a documentary about Mark Whetu, a prominent New Zealand mountain guide whose client died on Mount Everest. While this story also does not appear in the thesis, it has been influential in my understanding of how mountaineers deal with traumatic events and I have referred to it elsewhere (Davidson, 2004).26 Other films I watched at this time included Southern Faces, a locally produced DVD about rock climbing (including alpine rock) in New Zealand, and Touching the Void, a docu-drama based on the book of the same name (Simpson, 1988) about a British climber, Joe Simpson, who survived a gruelling ordeal after injuring himself while descending a mountain in the Peruvian Andes. This book is one of the most widely read (and discussed) of mountaineering books, by both mountaineers themselves and the wider public. Among the most relevant of the ‘cultural productions’ of New Zealand mountaineers are the NZAC publications. These include the annual New Zealand Alpine Journal (NZAJ), the NZAC Bulletin (published in a newsletter-type format twice annually until 1971 and six times annually until 1992), and The Climber (a colour magazine published quarterly which replaced the NZAC Bulletin). These publications include articles written by mountaineers about climbing trips, opinion pieces and letters to the editor, club news, climbing information and obituaries. My reading of these publications from 1949 until the present day (that is, roughly covering the time since the oldest of my interviewees began climbing) provides important contextual material for the interpretation of the biographical narratives. It is referred to in Chapters 4 and 5. 26 This conference paper included the analysis of newspaper articles about a tragic mountaineering accident in New Zealand on 1 January 2004 which led to the deaths of three mountain guides and one of their clients. This incident attracted a high degree of public interest and generated much discussion in mountaineering circles around safety, danger and death in the mountains, particularly where this involves paying clients. While this particular incident is beyond the scope of the current study, and is not directly referred to in this thesis, it has been influential in my understanding of these issues. 59 Key informants In addition to my interviewees, a number of people spoken to during the course of this study can be considered key informants. In particular the mountaineer and scholar,27 Dr Aat Vervoorn, was consulted at various times throughout the research process, most critically in the final stages, in order to provide comment on my interpretation of the mountaineering narratives.28 As a philosopher, the author of two autobiographical accounts of climbing in New Zealand (Vervoorn, 1981, 2000), and a mountaineer who knows its mountains and its climbing community intimately having climbed among them for forty years, Dr Vervoorn was ideally placed to critique and comment on my study. Others who were spoken to as key informants and provided various perspectives on my study include: James Heywood, an adventure film documentary maker based in Queenstown (and the maker of The Fatal Game); Colin Monteath, mountaineer and professional photographer, based in Christchurch; Dr Erik Monasterio, mountaineer and psychiatrist, who has undertaken a psychological study of New Zealand climbers; Dave Bamford, mountaineer and former president of the NZAC; and Judy Reid, mountaineer and current president of the NZAC. For a slightly different perspective, an early draft of my findings was read and commented on by the partner of a mountaineer. Aside from these, many others participated as more informal key informants; my friends and climbing partners discussed, debated and shared their views with me throughout all stages of the research process. Autobiographical experience or ‘prior ethnography’ The final source of contextual material for this study was my own experience as a climber and mountaineer, and my involvement with the New Zealand mountaineering community. I was introduced to tramping and climbing by an older brother while in my late teens. When I was eighteen, my brother took me on my first ‘real’ alpine trip onto the Bonar Glacier beneath Mount Aspiring in the Southern Alps. I was overwhelmed, not only by the stunning beauty of the alpine environment but also by the enormous excitement of having been on such an adventure, and the sense of achievement at having made the journey. We did not reach the top of any mountains, but I climbed over difficult terrain with a heavy 27 Dr Aat Vervoorn is Head of Centre, Centre of Asian Societies and Histories, Australian National University, Canberra. 28 I first met Aat Vervoorn at his home in Canberra in December 2002 before undertaking my interviews. We met again in New Zealand to discuss my research in July 2004, and again in December 2005. Throughout this period we also stayed in touch by email and he provided comment on my early interpretation of the interviews, as well as later drafts of my findings chapters. 60 pack, traversed a glacier, slept in a crowded, smelly mountain hut and made it out again, blisters and all. The beautiful leather climbing boots that my brother had bought for me at a second hand shop had been slightly too small and my blisters were so bad that I walked the final painful two hours down the valley barefoot. But I was hooked. In the twenty years since that early experience, the mountains have been a central point of reference in my life, whether climbing, skiing, tramping, travelling, working among them, or studying aspects of the human relationship with mountain environments. My level of commitment to mountaineering as such has not been comparable to that of the participants in this study; nevertheless, my relationship with the mountains has been an enduring one and I can empathise with my participants. As for lifestyle, in the three years before I began this study I sustained a degree of commitment to climbing approaching that of my research population but I was unable to maintain this while working and studying part-time. In addition, many of my friends and acquaintances are committed mountaineers and I have remained within a social group of climbers, even though my active participation has lessened. Thus I see myself as being in one sense an ‘insider’ and in another sense an ‘outsider’, in relation to my research population. Indeed, during the process of conducting this study, I have felt a certain drift from the ‘inside’ to the ‘outside’, partly through taking on the mantle of ‘researcher’ and partly for the reasons described above. However ambivalent my position may have been, it is important to the context of this study, as my experiences and my feelings about mountaineering can never be removed from it. As suggested in the title of this subsection, my autobiographical experiences and the ‘prior ethnography’ of being involved in a climbing community fed into my research in a number of important ways. Firstly, they influenced the choice of topic and the framing of the study. Secondly, in my interactions with my participants, I was positioned as at least a partial insider and this had implications for the research process. And finally, my personal perspective has inevitably came into play in my interpretation of the empirical materials. Working within the interpretive paradigm permits me to acknowledge this personal perspective through reflexivity, rather than obliging me to make claims to absolute neutrality or objectivity (Berg & Smith, 1988; Brown, 1996; Elliott, 2005). During the research period, I kept a research journal containing: my interview debriefing notes; references to my personal feelings about the interview situations; personal reflections on my own experiences that were prompted by the collection of empirical materials and their 63 (1999), which I consider most relevant to the purposes of my research.29 Denzin (2001a) suggests identifying the problematic events or epiphanies that structure the subject’s life, and capturing these with a personal experience story or a self-story. Epiphanies are the transformative experiences that ‘leave marks on people’s lives’. Often moments of crisis, they allow for the display of personal character and the altering of ‘fundamental meaning structures’ (Denzin, 1989:70). Once this has been achieved, the researcher can interpret the basic features of the narrative. Wengraf (2001:232) recommends asking the following questions: What is the pattern of the lived life? What is the pattern of the told story and the self-presentation? What is the relationship between the two? In answering these questions, Wengraf uses a system based on grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968) to reveal the ‘factual’ events of a life as presented by the participant and to produce a thematic analysis of the text to illuminate the way in which the participant tells the story of their life – recognising that there are many different ways in which a given life (and given sequence of events) could be told. This process understands such a personal history as being: constructed by, and consequently expressing, a gestalt or pattern or structure that has to be detected. The told-story is the surface under which is detected a flow in and/or of thematic fields, under which a deeper structure is then postulated to explain the upper two levels. (Wengraf, 2001:272) In addition to the ‘assumptions and asides’ of the narratives, they contain the explicit theories with which people understand their lives; what Bruner (1990:43) calls the ‘configuring plot’. The triangulation of these multiple sources of meaning can reveal, with careful interpretation, complex layers and nuances of meaning (Wengraf, 2001). These meanings can then be contextualised by the additional sources of empirical material collected during the research process, as Denzin (1989) also recommends. Another useful approach is Pamphilon’s (1999) ‘zoom method’ which prescribes the exploration of four different levels of meaning in life histories: macro, meso, micro and interactional. The macro-zoom examines the manifestation of collective narratives, cultural patterns and shared discourses in the individual’s biographical account. At the meso-level, the researcher pays attention to the individual’s narrative processes – the key themes and phrases. On the micro-level, ‘emotional and affective complexities’ reveal still 29 Another common approach found in narrative research comes from socio-linguistics in the tradition informed by the work of Labov and Waletzky, and described by Linde (1993). While there is some overlap between Linde’s approach and my own, I was not primarily concerned with the linguistic structure of the narratives. 64 more about the meaning of the story (Pamphilon, 1999). The interactional-zoom acknowledges the impact of the dynamics between the researcher and researched on the formation of a narrative. The interpretation of my empirical material was not a discrete process with a clear beginning and an end, although it can be seen to have commenced with my first encounters with my research participants. It continued on into the writing of this thesis and potentially will stretch on into the future as I reflect back on it. Despite the amorphous nature of this process, I outline here the various stages as they are conventionally perceived, between the collection of the material and the writing up of the research. As Elliott (2005) points out, with qualitative materials the earliest stages of interpretation can be the most difficult to convey as a structured process, because of their reliance on the researcher’s intuition. These stages I have already touched on in describing my use of a research journal to reflect upon the material I collected and the nature of the collection process. Later in this section I further describe a number of interactional issues that arose during the interviewing. Additional observations are provided in Appendix C. I include these observations in the ‘impressionist’ style advocated by Van Maanen (1988:102-103); that is, not so much to ‘interpret or analyze’ the process, but to invite the reader to ‘relive the tale’ with me, and thereby endeavour ‘to keep both the subject and object in constant view’. In dealing with the transcripts throughout the interpretation process it was my intention to retain, as much as possible, the narrative integrity of the whole. I wanted to avoid breaking the transcripts down into ‘units’ for coding, as is done, for example, using the constant comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). As Bruner (1990:43) explains, the ‘principal property’ of narrative ‘is its inherent sequentiality’ and none of its parts have a meaning independent of the plot they comprise within a given narrative; that is ‘the overall configuration of the sequence of the whole’. Thus, instead of breaking the narratives down into parts that no longer stood in relation to the whole, I ‘distilled’ the narratives into a manageable size and worked through my interpretation processes, as much as possible, with the whole narratives in mind. There was a distinct advantage here in having a smaller sample size, as I could avoid using a computer and instead, through constant re-reading, develop a high degree of familiarity with all twenty-two narratives, such that the use of qualitative data analysis software was not necessary. The process of distillation involved reducing the transcripts into a condensed version which included the main self-stories and personal experience stories, evaluations and other 65 opinions given. The sequentiality of the interview was maintained, and the main parts of the narrative were connected with linking summaries in my own words. Each condensed version was introduced with an overview of the interactional aspects of the interview, and a summary of the main narrative themes, and any problematic events/issues and/or epiphanies the interviewee had had, followed by an outline of the ‘told story’. An example of a condensed narrative is given in Appendix D. Each narrative was then examined for the way in which self or identity was constructed from the biographical particulars of a life. In particular, I noted the self-stories relating to how respondents became mountaineers and what made them mountaineers. Also pertinent were the personal experience stories describing formative events in these processes and illustrating certain points about who they were and what it meant to be ‘mountaineering selves’. This interpretation forms the basis of Chapter 3. My second ‘reading’ of the narratives was for the shared meanings: the communal narrative about what it meant to be a mountaineer – Pamphilon’s (1999) macro-zoom – and the moral dimensions of this narrative, as recommended by Frank (2002). This forms the basis of Chapter 4, and my reading of the NZAC publications contextualises and informs this interpretation. Finally, I examined the narratives for stories about the calculable and the incalculable nature of experience, and stories about death and mortality. This interpretation is presented in Chapter 5. The writing of the three findings chapters was, of course, another phase in the interpretation process, particularly as the empirical material was interwoven at these points with relevant theoretical perspectives. The inclusion in these findings chapters of theoretical literature, which is foreshadowed but not fully discussed in Chapter 1, is intended to reflect the nature of this process. Finally, the approach I took to the interpretation of the narratives was inevitably directed and informed by the aims of this particular study, and my enquiry is constrained by the way in which the research was framed around the construction of a sense of meaning and self. There are, however, many additional ‘readings’ that could be made of these narratives and many other contexts in which they could be explored, as exemplified in related studies of mine (Davidson, 2004, 2005). Narratives, as discussed above, contain complex layers of meaning open to interpretation. The nuances in the narratives I collected have not been exhausted by the current study. 68 residence, and names and dates of particular climbs which would lead to easy and unequivocal identification. To exclude all potentially identifying characteristics, however, would have rendered the material meaningless. Given this situation, my strategy has been to focus my ethical responsibilities on ensuring that the biographical narratives have been presented in the most sensitive and appropriate manner possible. In some cases, interviewees asked that certain information they shared with me not be included. I respected these wishes, and in other cases made my own decision not to include details that I considered overly personal. I believe it has been possible to do this without compromising the integrity of the interpretation, and where this is particularly pertinent, I have made reference to it in the following chapters. I have also endeavoured to undertake an interpretation that does not pass moral judgment on the interviewees or attempt anything resembling a ‘psychoanalysis’ of their actions. This was neither appropriate nor necessary, and certainly unjustified given the potential impact of such an interpretation upon a participant (Elliott, 2005). This brings me to the final ethical issue in this discussion: the ‘transformative potential’ of the narrative research process (Elliott, 2005; Hones, 1998).31 I was aware going into the interviewing process that telling one’s story, while often a pleasure, is not always so. It was not my intention to ask interviewees to discuss aspects of their lives that were painful or difficult for them. Nevertheless, such issues did arise in the course of some of the interviews, particularly during references to the deaths of friends and the breakdown of relationships, but never at my prompting. In encountering the strong emotions associated with these accounts, I felt sympathy and concern at the distress of the person involved. While the interviewees were always free to end the interview at their discretion, in all cases they regained their composure and continued their narrative with little apparent difficulty. I was often touched and surprised that interviewees should share so openly with a ‘virtual stranger’ such intimate details of their lives. These experiences affected me profoundly, and I acknowledge the possibility that the interviewees did not go unaffected either. A number had obviously spent some time before the interview thinking about their mountaineering and wondering what I might ask. Many commented at the end of the interview that they had enjoyed the chance to talk about their lives in such detail, or that it had prompted them to think about things in particular ways. 31 Denzin (2000) argues that all research could, or should, be transformative, that is, not just engaged in interpreting but also in changing the world. 69 Profiles of interviewees These profiles are provided as a means of introducing the reader to the protagonists who ‘people’ the remaining pages. It is my intention to give an initial sense of the ‘story’ of each particular individual, in preparation for the discussion which elaborates on these first impressions, and lays various stories side by side in order to answer the research questions outlined in Chapter 1. A few words of clarification are also required regarding the formatting style for the presentation of the empirical material. In these profiles and the chapters that follow, the spoken text from the biographical narratives and extracts from the NZAC publications appear as italicised text in quotation marks or indented paragraphs. In places, relatively long quotations are included in order to give the reader the sense of a whole story and its meaning. In such cases, to assist in directing the reader to pertinent themes in the story, key words or phrases are in bold type. In some cases, where a shorter or condensed version of a story is used, the reader is directed via a footnote to the Appendices for the full version. In this way, I have attempted to maintain the flow of the following three chapters, without excluding the possibility of examining the full context of my interpretation of particular stories. Chris (19 January 2003) Chris is in his forties, and has been climbing since he went to university and joined the tramping club. Although he was somewhat “loose” at the beginning, and he had some “early epics”, he describes himself now as “pretty conservative”. Chris feels “right at home” in the mountains. He appears to have an enormous amount of energy, saying that he gets quite restless and frustrated by periods of inactivity. Chris loves the “ambience” of the mountains, and particularly enjoys the exploration aspect of mountaineering – doing things no-one else has, original and slightly “edgy” or “obscure” things. He and his partner are both climbers and they have a lifestyle which is “pretty flexible”, allowing them to pursue their passion, raise their young son, and operate their adventure tourism business. Dave (22 January 2003) Born in the early sixties, Dave grew up in a small town close to the mountains. While at school, he was taken rock climbing and up into the snow where he first tried some basic mountaineering. He left school and continued tramping. After travelling overseas, he 70 returned to New Zealand and took to mountaineering in his early twenties. Dave has been climbing consistently ever since, supporting himself with various forms of casual employment. He recently married Trish, who is also a climber, although she does not climb with the same “hell-bentness”, according to Dave. According to his narrative, Dave grew from a shy and “skinny” child, into a “really good” mountaineer. He speaks of a deep love and commitment to climbing. Bob (22 January 2003) Bob grew up on the “adventure-type stories” of his father who had worked in East Africa. He “stumbled on the mountain thing” through being a Boy Scout and being taken tramping in the local ranges, and after that “every weekend I just went into the hills”. After leaving school he started working in an office, but realised that was not what he wanted to do and made the decision to go “off down south to go climbing”. Bob later took up flying, which means he is “still able to get around the hills” even though he is “physically not as fit”. Bob owns his own company and is in his fifties. He speaks of a deep love and attachment to “the land … my land”. He sees mountaineering as about exploration and travelling in the hills, as “journeys of discovery”, through which “one can discover one’s self”. Bob told stories that displayed a sense of irreverence for the conventional way of doing things. The motto of his life is that “there are many windows to look out of”: one should not restrict oneself. Jess (23 January 2003) Jess was introduced to the outdoors by her parents, who took her caving from the age of five. At high school she began rock climbing, and when she went to university she became immersed in the climbing club ‘scene’ and was introduced to mountaineering. She moved to the South Island four years ago with her partner, who is also a mountaineer, after they both spent two years climbing in Europe and South America. Moving south was “a lifestyle decision” to be closer to the mountains. Jess stressed that she loved the “clarity” of “being in the hills”, which was “almost a spiritual thing”. Other themes in Jess’s initial narrative were the desire to control her fear (she liked to feel in control and she didn’t like “being afraid unreasonably”), and the need to “address” the deaths of friends in the mountains. Jess is in her thirties and does some work in architectural design (in which she is trained), as well as working part-time for a guiding company. 73 crags, and when they became too familiar for him he decided to go to “more adventurous places”. Adam came to New Zealand for a mountaineering course and has returned several times to climb, before making his recent decision to move here: “to get as much personal experience as I can in the Alps”. He loves the “creative” aspects of climbing – being able to “climb something entirely in my own way” – and the beauty and solitude of the mountain environment. Tim (8 February 2003) Tim is in his twenties and started climbing at high school after winning two hundred dollars in a raft race and using it to buy a climbing rope. At university he “hooked up” with some “quite sturdy climbers” who became his mentors. Through his desire to climb alpine rock he branched out into mountaineering. He took a year off university when he was twenty and went overseas to be a “climbing bum”. He “lived off nothing for six months and did nothing but climbing”. After that trip he realised that he was “at heart always going to be … a climber”. He came back to New Zealand and went straight back into the mountains for two months. At the time of the interview Tim was part-time self- employed, but in a few months time he was off to work at Outward Bound for three years. Jane (10 February 2003) Jane loved climbing trees as a child, and although her family was not particularly ‘outdoorsy’, she felt “there was something about the mountains” and she “always sort of wanted to be a climber”. From the beginning she did not want to be introduced to it by a father or boyfriend, “which often happens to a lot of girls”. Instead she did a course while still at school, and was nurtured by a strong female climber as part of a group of young girls. She took a year to work and climb after finishing school. Seven years later, in spite of her original intention of going to university, she is still travelling, working and climbing. Being independent and doing things on her own is very important to Jane. She finds it empowering to find herself getting “better and better” as a climber. I had the sense that she was thoroughly enjoying her life. The only tension noted was through her admission that she sometimes feels as if she is “this girl, that doesn’t look very strong” and that she has to “prove” herself. Kath (11 February 2003) Kath is in her forties and was introduced to tramping and climbing at high school. As soon as she left school she gave herself a “good kick start” by doing three mountaineering 74 courses back to back. After that she “mountaineered fanatically for quite a few years”. She married another climber and they went overseas climbing together. After she returned to New Zealand her marriage broke up and she felt “really burnt out a little bit on mountaineering”, so she took up kayaking “for a few years”. When she came back to climbing it was through competitive rock climbing and she found that this made her “really strong” and helped her mountaineering. A few years ago she started ice climbing and when she found that she could ‘hold her own’ in this “really macho scene” she decided that she would focus on “steeper technical mountaineering”. She has re-married, and her current husband is a rock climber but not a mountaineer. Kath is self-employed, which gives her the time flexibility she needs to go climbing. Pete (11 February 2003) Pete was first exposed to the outdoors by his parents and when he went to university he met a group of climbers who inspired and encouraged him. During his university years climbing became his main focus and he “bailed out of varsity basically because I was so keen on it”. For a number of years he made a “lifestyle” out of climbing, by working for a guiding company, but he made the decision as he grew older that he didn’t want to have to go into the mountains to earn a living. He eventually went back to finish his qualifications and worked for a number of years as a surveyor, before taking a job with the Department of Conservation, working around his local National Park. Pete is now in his forties and married with a young child. He climbed together with his wife when they first met, and she goes on her own trips into the hills. They are “both perfectly relaxed with each other going off and doing their own thing”. Pete seemed to be a person who was comfortable and happy with his lifestyle, and the “mountain environment” was a central, life-long passion. Terry (13 February 2003) Terry is in his late fifties and originally from England. He began rock climbing when he went to a secondary school where the headmaster was a mountaineer. From his first experiences of climbing, he thought “‘yes’. [laughs] And it’s been ‘yes, yes, yes’ ever since”. Every weekend for “years and years and years” he climbed all over the United Kingdom, “right up until I got married”. In the early 1970s he came to New Zealand for a two-year working holiday with his wife, and having fallen in love with the mountains here, decided to stay. Since then he’s “climbed and climbed”. For Terry climbing mountains is “a way of life”, and he obviously gets huge enjoyment from it even though as he has 75 grown older he has had to ‘tone it down’. Terry has a new partner and they enjoy going into the hills together. Thomas (14 February 2003) Thomas grew up in Switzerland and was taken into the mountains by his parents from an early age. When he left school he joined the junior section of the local alpine club, and under their supervision “very slowly and very gently” his skills increased. By the time he was twenty he was doing “some very big climbs”. In the early sixties Thomas emigrated to New Zealand, bringing new techniques from Europe and making some difficult ascents in the Aoraki/Mount Cook region. Thomas climbed less once he got married and had a family, but sees climbing as part of his life, which sometimes he has been “fanatical about” and other times “more relaxed”. Now in his sixties, he has begun climbing more regularly again, including climbing with his son, which he finds very enjoyable. Thomas is a professional artist and he sees the creative aspects of art and climbing as being interconnected. For Thomas, the most important aspect of doing anything is to do it in the right “style”. Steph (14 February 2003) Steph started tramping and skiing with her family when she was “quite little”. Her brother taught her to rock climb when she was sixteen, and she started tramping “higher and higher” until she was climbing mountains. After leaving school she went to polytechnic and trained to be an outdoor instructor. Since then she has done seasonal work to support her climbing, as well as starting a university degree. Steph enjoys feeling independent, gaining confidence and feeling comfortable in the mountains. While she is sure that mountaineering is what she wants to be doing, she is still trying to find the right balance in her life. While she is studying at university she feels frustrated at her lack of time for climbing, but when climbing is her “main focus” she begins to feel after a while as if she needs “some other stimulation” for her brain. Steph is in her mid-twenties. Bill (15 February 2003) Bill is the oldest mountaineer I interviewed. The mountains have been part of his life from a very young age. His father belonged to the local mountaineering club, and Bill joined while still at high school. In the mountains Bill found freedom, friends, exploration and a reason for being; everything else seemed like drudgery. An expedition to the Himalaya was an important learning experience for him, reinforcing his ethic that mountaineering 78 studies, is its value as an alternative to the use of self-reported motives, and a concern with causative explanations of human behaviour. To quote Bruner (1990:122) again: The presuppositions that we lace into the telling of our lives are deep and virtually limitless. … And why things are included remains mostly implicit … And if you should ask that reasons be made explicit, your question will surely steer that account in a direction that it would not have taken otherwise. For the interviewer becomes part of that “swarm of participations” that distributes Self across the occasions of its use. The biographical narrative interviewer remains deeply implicated in the ‘swarm of participations’. In this study, however, I have attempted to reflect critically upon my participation and to account for it in the interpretation process. While some of my experiences ‘in the field’ may appear to have frustrated my chosen method, they in themselves have made contributions to my understanding of meaning-making processes in the lives of mountaineers. People’s reticence or discomfort in talking about certain parts of their lives, and their interpretations of what I wanted to hear, are as much a key to meaning as the full narrative that flows effortlessly from beginning to end. In reflecting upon this, and in accepting that some people are more gifted and enthusiastic story-tellers than others, I have endeavoured in the following chapters to weave together the various stories in a manner that reflects their peculiarities and their particular contributions to my understanding of the processes under consideration. In doing this I strive to tell their stories in a way which illustrates their ‘warts and all’ nature, but also in an ethically responsible and respectful way. I therefore ‘walk the line’ between presenting their stories in a manner which is not ‘incompatible with the truth’, but which also acknowledges the good faith the interviewees have shown in relaying to me their personal and sometimes tragic stories, in generous and detailed ways. Ultimately, however, it must be acknowledged that the central story told by this thesis is not the only version that could be told, as is true of all stories. Any story, Bruner (2004:709) tells us, ‘is better understood by considering other possible ways in which it can be told’. Thus this study can make no claims to generalisability or replicability. It aspires instead to ‘speak for itself’: to tell a story against which past and future stories about the meaning of mountaineering can be read, and to contribute to an on-going ‘creative conflict of interpretations’. As Kearney (2004:8) explains: Because we are finite beings, our understanding always remains within the historical limits of the hermeneutic circle. The myth of absolute reason must always be resisted in favour of a plurality of critical debates and detours. 79 Chapter 3 The narrative construction of mountaineering selves Introduction In this chapter I consider the construction of a sense of self in the mountaineering narratives. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first discusses stories about becoming a mountaineer, and the significance of these stories in terms of a sense of being, or identifying as, a mountaineer. As will be seen, the need to establish a durable identity and a ‘true’ sense of self is an ever-present subtext in the narratives, and the second section of the chapter outlines in more detail the ways in which mountaineering is seen to fulfil this need. Finally, I consider the efficacy of the mountaineering self as a response to the ‘identity crisis’ discussed in Chapter 1. Throughout the chapter I focus primarily on the way in which the biographical particulars of a life are woven together to give an individual sense of meaning and self centred on mountaineering. In Chapter 4 I shift the focus to the communal narratives of identity and the meaning of mountaineering. I am aware that any attempt to distinguish between individual and communal meanings and identities is a fraught and somewhat dubious process, as neither exist independently of the other. Rather than suggesting that these are separate constructs, I am utilising here Pamphilon’s (1999) ‘zoom’ technique, discussed in Chapter 2, to examine two interacting phenomena which are intertwined within life histories. In this chapter I take a micro-zoom: a ‘close-up’ of the biographical details of the narratives, to understand more fully the processes at work in the construction of an identity from the events and circumstances of a mountaineer’s life. My intention is to determine what, if any, commonalities exist between the narratives in this regard – commonalities that could be seen to account for the durability of the narrators’ commitment to mountaineering. A macro-zoom is taken in Chapter 4, in order to examine the ways in which cultural patterns and shared discourses shape meaning and self in the biographical narratives. As discussed in Chapter 2, Denzin (2001a:61) describes three forms of narrative which combine to give us the story of a life in a broad sense. In the following discussion, a variety of personal experience stories and self-stories appear. I have added as much context as possible to give the sense of their place within the spoken autobiography from which they have been taken. Connections between the various personal stories of 80 individuals are indicated as the interpretation progresses. At the beginning of the second section of this chapter I discuss one particular narrative more fully, in order to give an example of how the themes in this chapter are woven through a personal history. Emerging identities: becoming and being a mountaineer While the events and circumstances of our particular lives provide the raw materials for our life stories, we construct these stories, according to Taylor (1989:289), in two ‘interwoven’ and ‘inescapable’ senses. We see the shape of our life as being determined by those things that have happened along the way, and at the same time, ‘since the life to be lived has also to be told’, we ‘see this shape as something already latent, which emerges through what comes to pass … We are made what we are by events; and as self-narrators, we live these through a meaning which the events come to manifest or illustrate’. In the biographical narratives of the mountaineers interviewed, identities emerged in the two-fold sense that Taylor describes: their experiences in the mountains shaped the person that they are; and the person that they are led them to the mountains. Being and becoming are in many ways so interconnected that they cannot be prised apart without leaving each piece of the puzzle broken and incomplete. The narrative emphasis can shift subtly during the telling of a life history between ‘I became a mountaineer’ and ‘I am a mountaineer’. But when one takes centre stage, the other often lurks in the background. Together they imply: ‘I became a mountaineer because I did such and such, and I met so and so’; ‘a mountaineer is who I am, always have been, and always will be: I cannot imagine not being a mountaineer’. Although most of the mountaineers did not actually start climbing mountains until their late teens or early twenties, their narratives about how they became mountaineers often locate beginnings in certain events or tendencies earlier in life which foretell or foreshadow their later desire to climb. There are variations to the story of an awakening identity as a mountaineer: it may be a penchant for climbing trees as a child, or hearing one’s Scottish father tell of adventures in East Africa. In the biographical narratives of my mountaineers, however, a number of important themes form the base ingredients. In any particular narrative the quantities and the process of their blending may differ, so that one or other may dominate, but otherwise they are remarkably consistent: getting a “mountain feeling” (falling in love with the mountains); entering the social world of mountaineering (being nurtured and finding like minds); and making choices (more or less consciously deciding: ‘this is who I am; this is what I want to do’). 83 up at the hills and said ‘oh I wish I was up there’ and like I have no recollection of that but I think that I must have always had this yearning to be on the heights. So it is strange isn’t it? … I’ve never really questioned it, it was just me, … I just knew when I first went to the mountain centre that was me, that was what I wanted to do. Family stories of the depth of Sue’s passion for climbing are important not only for shaping her own narrative of self, but perhaps also in helping her family accept the choices she has made. To deal with the anxiety of having someone you love climb, it can be easier to resign yourself to the inevitability of it. My mother didn’t like it at all when I started getting into climbing at university and she tried hard to persuade me not to do it … I think she came to a point where she just accepted that that was me and I was going to do it and she just let me get on with it.32 Much later in her life story the acceptance of a mutual ‘need’ to climb is central to Sue’s relationship with her husband, and when I asked her how she would feel about her own children climbing she conceded that the same logic should apply: if they get into harder alpine climbing, Himalayan climbing, I think I’d be quite worried. … But I had to do it and so you know if the kids really want to do it then that’s their life you know. For Bill and Mark an important trigger that led them to the mountains was encountering, and surviving, the forces of nature. Bill’s “appetite for more adventure” was whetted when he was caught in a flooded river while tramping with his brother and father as a young boy. Mark sees his beginnings in playing outdoors as a child: “always into exploring and chasing up and down the riverbanks and, doing stuff like that. Climbing trees, falling in the river”. But the critical “romantic” experience came on a school outdoor pursuits programme: It was one of those experiences that everyone hated at the time, but as soon as it was over everyone thought ‘oh you know that was so cool we did this and we did that and it was so cold, everyone was freezing to bits and we were going to get lost but we didn’t’ And yeah, and I thrived on it, I thought it was just the most amazing experience I’d ever had. Yeah. It was kind of unreal really. And so that got me into the outdoors, that made me want to go tramping and, camping and, doing stuff.33 Chris begins his story in an unassuming way: “I’d done a bit of tramping, been in the snow a bit. … [pause] I don’t know – I guess I just ended up hanging out with the climber types in the tramping club”. But how he feels when in the mountains is crucial. On Chris’s first 32 When reviewing her transcript Sue added that her mother, who was Catholic, also prayed a lot as a response to her climbing. For full story see Appendix C, number 1, page 265. 33 For full story see Appendix C, number 2, page 265. 84 climb, his companion, who Chris had assumed was more experienced than he perhaps was, took a big fall, pulling out the equipment anchoring them to the mountain. The following weekend Chris took a fall and had to be rescued by helicopter. Still, Chris “just loved it, got right into the mountains, being in the mountains … it never became too hostile, I mean, you know, felt right at home, which is obviously why I got into it”. The New Zealand artist, Max Gimblett, says home ‘is where your sense of self is deeply stirred’,34 and this is an apt description of how mountaineers feel about the mountains. However it comes about, this “mountain feeling” – being comfortable, at home, or exhilarated in the mountains, feeling as part of the landscape, or that the mountains are part of you – ultimately it is the most durable aspect of the climber’s identity and even, some would argue, the only criterion necessary to call yourself a mountaineer. It provides the life-long basis to the identity, even when climbers are well past their prime; as long as they keep ‘appreciating’ the mountains in whatever capacity they can, their identity is intact. I return to the centrality of the “mountain feeling” in Chapter 4. It is important to note at this point, however, that there are obvious echoes here of a Romantic sentiment: that growth of feeling for nature which emerged in the eighteenth century, with Rousseau at the forefront, and concerned itself with an intensely emotional response to nature. Such noble sentiments as awe and astonishment provided a counter-balance against the ‘too pressing regulative control of an analytic, disengaging, order-imposing reason’ heralded by the Enlightenment (Taylor, 1989:297, 301). In the mountaineers’ narratives, however, there is less of the Romantic evangelism concerning the universal potential for nature to direct us towards the ‘fundamentally good’. There are a number of recurring moral messages, but I will discuss these later also. Of relevance here are those aesthetic experiences described by Levin (1992): the ones that give us a sense of ‘coherence and continuity’ and for that reason make us feel good. We seek them out again and again, because when we experience them we get that sense of ‘yes, this is me’. As Simon told me, “some pretty amazing times, yeah definitely the best times in my life have been in the mountains”. Thus it is the story of a deeply felt personal, as opposed to universal, passion, which both marks one’s story as different from others’ stories (whether of siblings, spouses, parents or childhood friends), and aligns one with those who profess a similar feeling for the mountains, such that they will orient their lives towards them. It is a story of belonging to a world demarcated by emotional and social boundaries. The following section discusses 34 Max Gimblett is quoted in Wedde (2004). 85 how the climbers encounter and enter the social world of mountaineering, and the importance this has for the shape of a narrative about becoming a mountaineer. Entering the social world of mountaineering The social worlds of serious leisure activities have been extensively discussed by Stebbins (1992; 2001), using Unruh’s (1983:14) definition as a basis, according to which a social world is an ‘extremely large, highly permeable, amorphous, and spatially transcendent form of social organization wherein actors are linked cognitively through shared channels of communication’. A social world encompases four types of members: ‘strangers’, who exist on the fringes without necessarily being active participants (for example, equipment suppliers and book publishers); ‘tourists’, who are the spectators or observers of an activity; ‘regulars’, who are the active and routine participants of the social world; and finally, the ‘insiders’; that is, ‘the small number of outstanding participants who show exceptional devotion to, and personal development in, the social world’ (Stebbins, 2005:114). Stebbins’ (2005) recent study of the mountaineering social world in the Canadian Rockies found that it operated primarily at an ‘informal level’, organised around small groups and social networks through which participants shared information and identified potential climbing partners. A similar observation could be made of the mountaineers in this study. In relation to the current discussion on becoming a mountaineer, most speak of entering the social world through connections with family and friends. This often later leads to joining a club or taking a course. Through these networks the young, aspiring mountaineers find like minds who nurture their development. Often, particular people are seen to have a pivotal influence, and these become role models as the mountaineers consolidate their identities. Pete says he did not have any interest as a teenager in “going into the hills or climbing or tramping, other than being dragged along with Dad every now and then”. But he starts his story there, with his parents exposing him to the outdoors at an early age. The turning point came when he started university and went on a tramping trip into an alpine area with a friend. Here they met a couple of experienced climbers who lent them their ice axes so that they could explore higher up. They “got into a bit of crevasse country and poked around and had a good look around and I just came out of that and that’s just what I wanted to do. I just wanted to get back into that country at every opportunity I could”. The older brother of one of his friends was an active climber, one of the “hard men” of a