Claimed identities, personal projects, and relationship to place: a hermeneutic interpretation of the backcountry/wilderness experience at Rocky Mountain National Park

Abstract

Captured in narrative textual form through open-ended and tape-recorded interview conversations, visitor experience was interpreted to construct a description of visitors' relationships to place while at the same time providing insights for those who manage the national park. A meaning-based model of human behavior was employed within an interpretive and constructionist paradigm, namely productive hermeneutics, which is based in the philosophies of Martin Heidegger, H. G. Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur. Humans are conceived of as meaning-makers, and outdoor recreation is viewed as emergent experience that can enrich peoples' lives rather than a predictable outcome of processing information encountered in the setting. This process-oriented approach positions subjective well-being and positive experience in the ongoing processes and activities that comprise our life pursuits rather than in particular end states toward which behaviors might be directed as in the case of end state frameworks. Twelve interview transcripts were organized around the umbrella themes of claimed identity, as expressed in the narrative, and engagement in personal projects while visiting the Park. This organization system enabled an insightful within-visitor interpretation of the inter-relationships among experiences, social constructions of a protected place, and the broader life situations and aspirations of these individuals. Each interpreted narrative represents a detailed understanding of a possible experience for an actual park visitor in the context of the setting rather than a generalization about the average visitor experience. These "representative types" provide insight to park managers about diversity in visitor experiences at the national park. Several themes emerged in the interpretation across narratives including (1) a relationship of stewardship/sense of respectful mitigation, (2) socially constructed dimensions of the wilderness concept, which both converged with and deviated from definitions in The Wilderness Act of 1964, (3) humans positioned as both part of wilderness and separate from it, (4) description of a process whereby people form a relationship to protected places, and (5) an awareness among visitors of the overarching management dilemma of how to balance human visitation with protection. Management insights and general implications that emerged from the overall interpretation such as using narrative illustration to enhance visitor education were summarized. Engagement in personal projects overlapped to some extent with traditional end state domains of recreation motivation. Since personal projects can include both intrinsic and extrinsic behaviors, it is suggested that study of this concept may enable a more integrated understanding of end state and process-oriented sources of positive experience. It is suggested that the particularities of the setting (e.g., wildness and solitude), in conjunction with the process-oriented creation of meaning via varying levels of physical and social interaction with the setting each play important roles, perhaps at different times, for visitors' relationships to places within the Park. The process of forming long-term relationships to places is highlighted as the common thread running through the interpretation. The value of the national park is seen to lie in these relationships, which are time and context dependent, not necessarily in the attributes of the park, many of which are generic to other protected areas in North America. Incentives to encourage repeat visits and overnight stays in backcountry are discussed as a way to facilitate positive relationship building. It is suggested that qualitative interpretive interviews, couched within meaning-based approaches, are appropriate for capturing these process-oriented relationships to place. Because these valued relationships are not interchangeable across settings, we need to enter into similar dialog and communication with other visitors at other parks and protected areas, including designated wilderness areas, to find out more about the physical interactions and social processes by which people develop different types of relationships with these places. The dissertation concluded with an evaluation of this interpretation based on these implications and insights and provided direction for further research to learn about the processes involved with forming relationships to protected places.