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A Functional Analysis of the Personal Narrative Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Plan B and other Reports Graduate Studies 5-2015 Navigating the Outdoor Recreation Folk Group: A Functional Analysis of the Personal Narrative Lori Lee Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports Part of the Other English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Lori, "Navigating the Outdoor Recreation Folk Group: A Functional Analysis of the Personal Narrative" (2015). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports. 521. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/521 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Plan B and other Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lee 1 NAVIGATING THE OUTDOOR RECREATION FOLK GROUP: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL NARRATIVE by Lori J. Lee A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in American Studies/Folklore Approved: ______________________________ _____________________________ Lynne McNeill, PhD Christopher Monz, PhD Major Professor Committee Member _______________________________ _____________________________ Jeannie Thomas, PhD Vice President of Research Committee Member and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah 2015 Lee 2 Abstract Among the participants of the outdoor recreation folk group, or people who participate regularly in human-powered outdoor recreation as a lifestyle, personal narratives are an integral and integrated part of interaction. This group is particularly rife with stories, because in the natural order of their lifestyle they regularly engage in activities filled with adventure and challenge. As members of this folk group engage in recreation together they share their personal narratives because it is the common tie between them, not only in interest, but in current participation and thus natural conversation. This common and simple tie sets the stage perfectly for the sharing of personal experiences, but more than that, within this folk group, the stories serve other crucial functions that play a role in the perpetuation of group dynamics, community development, community involvement, and social sorting within the group. This thesis discusses the findings of an analysis of 15 personal narratives, collected in natural context, and determined to play the primary roles of establishing or maintaining face, social sorting, and community building. I find myself at the top of a zip-line at the Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, waiting with a friend and my son for our race to the bottom of the mountain. I’m teasing my son about the fact that his excuse for losing the last zip-line race is that a “branch hit him” during the first phase of the race and slowed him down. My friend J.G. begins to tell a story, and because I have my phone with me I record his narrative. J.G.: Well speaking of branches, I was in Maui and we were mountain biking, actually we were on the island of Molaki, it’s on the desert side and we were descending down to the ocean. So, you’d be in these big areas that you just kind of roll over, and it was kind of single track that would weave through these meadows. And my buddy stopped and goes “Oh, I gotta remind you of something. Don’t…don’t run into those bushes. He said, you’re gonna see these bushes, they don’t look harmful, but they are really going to hurt. And I’m goin and I see one that looks really painful and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to avoid that.” and then I run into the one doesn’t look painful. L.J. And it was? J.G.: And it was like this shhhh, it literally grabbed me like hooks and shredded my arm. L.J. Really? J.G.: And I remember, I pull up and my buddy stops and he goes, “Oh, you got it, didn’t Yeah ?” And I was literally bleeding. And I still have scars, here and here (points to arm) Lee 3 just two lines that go like this (shows how long the cuts were). Because it just went shhhh. And it just … L.J. How did it do that? J.G.: It was just like……but it’s funny, because if you bumped into it, it wouldn’t do anything, but because you’re moving it grabs you. It was just like shhhh. L.J. What kind of plant was it? J.G.: I don’t know. Some tropical monster. L.J. Huh! J.G.: But Yeah know…talk about plants grabbing you! It slowed me down. I mean it grabbed me so much it almost ripped me off my bike. And I was just bleeding. L.J. Where was it at? Hawaii? J.G.: Maui, no, not Maui, it was Molaki. At the end of his story we progress through the line and load up in our zip line chairs, egging each other on, and the conversation takes off in a different vein. This story, casually shared among friends, was told as a way to tie into a conversation that was already taking place, to validate another person in the party (my son), and to establish and maintain J.G’s “face” as a recreationalist who is serious enough about his sports to participate in them while on vacation and in lands unfamiliar to him. In this thesis I will explore 15 personal narratives within the outdoor recreation folk group, the functional roles the narratives play, and what these functions tell us about what the members of the outdoor recreation folk group value and the role the personal narrative plays in the social navigation of the group. Lee 4 Introduction In Outside Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, BackPacker or any other nationally produced outdoor recreation magazine, the stories told on the glossy pages are those of epic adventures and feats filled with danger, conquering, and often exotic travels. For example, the first issue I grabbed from my stack of National Geographic Adventure magazines contains articles about biking Italy, rafting the Grand Canyon, traveling in Thailand and kiteboarding the Sai Island in Cape Verde’s Windward Islands. These stories establish an expectation within the folk group, as well as outside it, that real or serious outdoor recreationalist’s narratives will be filled with these same extraordinary aspects. Just as Hollywood focuses on the most daring and exotic of circumstances to keep an audience entertained, so too have the national recreation magazines narrowed the stories they publish into the vein of the extreme adrenaline narratives. While many outdoor recreationalists do have such stories in their quiver of tales, often the stories told among themselves do not mirror the extreme nature of those that are published, rather they serve more mundane but important purposes centered on nuanced navigation within the folk group. Exploring these subtleties in group navigation shines a spotlight on the importance of the personal narrative for acceptance, maintenance, connection, and community building within the group. Evaluation of their personal narratives demonstrate the values within the tales; thus we begin to see which qualities are valued within this group. For example, if we find that all the personal narratives have an element of bravery, then we can safely conclude that this characteristic is important to group members. The analysis of their stories gives insight into the cogs of the outdoor recreation folk group machine and helps us understand social navigations within the group, what characteristics the group finds valuable in their participants, and how this group builds and prioritizes self and Lee 5 community. Sherman Alexie said, “With the combined weight of stories, you can get at the truth.” The ethnographic approach to the personal narrative is done for this purpose –to “get at the truth” of what we value, how we navigate the social sphere, and what that means. The Outdoor Recreation Folk Group In the early years of the 20 th century, when the daily grind of the agrarian lifestyle was pushed aside for the industrial age, free time or leisure time was suddenly available to the general populace of the United States. The use of this leisure time varies greatly by individual culture and person, but one of the factions that developed was the pursuit of play and challenge within nature, specifically mountain biking, hiking, white water rafting/kayaking, rock climbing, mountaineering, etc. – human-powered recreation. The outdoor recreation folk group engages in these activities as a regular lifestyle. “…serious leisure activities in natural settings…are a significant and important way in which people in the Western world (and increasingly in other parts of the world) enjoy their free time” (Davidson and Stebbins, 2011). For purposes of this paper I have defined this group as: people who specifically and regularly engage in human-powered sports, undertaken outdoors in wild places such as mountains, rivers, and deserts. The personal narratives I collected for this research came from people who categorized themselves as participants in this folk group by making the choice to attend hiking Meet-Up groups, go on outdoor recreation adventure trips, and participate in groups of recreationalists where these stories were collected. My own involvement in this folk group must be noted, as must the emic perspective it gives me in data collection and analysis. My involvement in this folk group stems not only from my participation in a variety of these activities over the past twenty-five years, (such as rock climbing, mountaineering, ice climbing, mountain biking, road biking, extreme skiing, hiking, snowshoeing, and white water rafting) but Lee 6 also working as a journalist within the industry itself, giving me media access to athletes, manufacturers, and recreationalists across the country.
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