Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory in the Field by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415452212
Google: aO5juAAACAAJ
Goodreads: 7101280
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-01-15T08:39:00+00:00

Emergent concepts of risk

To guide exploratory study of the three mountain sports and give me a reasonable idea of where to look for risk as it bears on them, I developed a small set of preliminary definitions of this concept, which were effectively emergent theoretic codes. The ideas sprang from my own experience in nature-challenge hobbies and from discussion with a small circle of students, friends, and colleagues of similar leisure interest. The definitions had to admit the leisure qualities of the three hobbies as well as their participant’s view of what is risky. Moreover I was concerned with “high risk” in the area of nature-challenge hobbies, since this has been the level of risk uppermost in the minds of the authors of the aforementioned literature.

I was able to conceive of four types, as seen through the eyes of hobbyists. Unmanaged high risk, or risk that emerges only when individuals lose concentration, get fatigued, or otherwise suddenly become unable to draw on their acquired skills, knowledge, and experience that keep them in leisure and, at its peak, in flow. The second is fortuitous high risk, which is greatly improbable risk from uncontrollable sources such as snow avalanches, falling rock, sudden elevations of water level (as caused by heavy rain), and ice slicks (on cross-country ski trails). These are what mountaineers call “objective hazards,” hazards created by nature.

Social high risk, the third type, was considered earlier as pressure from peers to engage in the activity at a level regarded by the pressured participant as risky. In other words, it is regarded by that person as going significantly beyond his or her acquired skills, knowledge, and experience. But social risk can also include intentionally taking great risks for the fame and perhaps even the fortune that it brings. And sometimes nature-challenge hobbyists take social risks because others in their team want to press on (e.g. up the mountain face, down the river rapids). An important point to be made about their activities is that the first two types of risk can, with careful preparation and advance information, usually be avoided and, in fact, generally are. They are avoided because, in significant part, even moderate risk seriously dilutes the senses of flow and leisure. It is questionable whether either is felt at all in social risk, though that may not matter in any case, since the object here is to establish an identity as “gutsy,” as a devil-may-care individual.

Finally, included in this list is what I labeled humanitarian high risk. For example, Jennifer Lois (2003) studied “peak volunteers”—viewed in the present book according to the serious leisure perspective as leisure participants— who sometimes must challenge nature while carrying out search and rescue missions. They seek high risk not for its own sake, but rather confront it (presumably reluctantly) in their efforts to save lives or recover bodies. Peak volunteers are not hobbyists, of course.

In short, while the public, in general, and the press and some scientific writers, in particular, are fond of describing

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