Jan Arvidsen

Young people’s outdoor refuges: Movements and (dis)entanglements

ABSTRACT Young peoples outdoor refuges have been identified as places that provide respite from everyday pressures. Inspired by four concepts of lines, knots, meshwork and wayfaring, as defined by Tim Ingold, this paper aims to contribute with a dynamic understanding of the practices of outdoor refuging in an increasingly demanding and structured everyday life. The paper reports on photo-elicited interviews with twenty-one young people from a countryside town in Denmark. The findings suggest that outdoor refuges simultaneously serve to disentangle young people from distressing knots in their everyday lives, while fostering positive emotional and sensory entanglements with the human and non-human environment. Further, the findings highlight the significance of mobile phones in the young peoples refuging practices. The findings resonate with discourses on the changing conditions for young peoples spatial autonomy, and raise questions about acknowledging, protecting and promoting their opportunities for outdoor refuging.

Growing dens. On re-grounding the child–nature relationship through a new materialist approach to children’s dens

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to the dawning disruption of the prevailing notion of the child–nature relationship through a new materialist reading of children’s dens, and proffers a re-grounded and worldly gaze on the relationship with implications for the promotion of children’s outdoor lives. The study is an ethnographical field study among 10–12-year-old boys in a Danish school. Data were generated through participant observation, and include video recordings and photographs of children’s dens. Drawing on a flat ontology and plugging in key Ingoldian concepts of meshwork and growing (Ingold 2011a, 2013), the analysis suggests that children’s relations to dens cut across taken-for-granted subject–object binaries and go beyond common notions of nature as inert materials. I find that dens are growing in an ever-becoming meshwork comprised by human and non-human intra-actions, and that agency or vitality can be ascribed broadly to the material world. Possible implications for planning are considered.

Safety Cultures in Water-Based Outdoor Activities in Denmark

In this paper, we report on the study Safe in Nature (Tryg i naturen) in which the aim was to analyze and discuss risk and safety related to outdoor recreation in the coastal regions of Denmark. A cultural perspective is applied to risk management and the safety cultures related to three selected water-based outdoor activities: small boat fishing, sea kayaking, and kite surfing. The theoretical framework used was cultural analysis and the methodological approach was mixed methods using case studies with survey and qualitative interviews. The study indicates that safety is a complex matter and that safety culture can be understood as the sum and interaction among six categories. The safety culture is closely related to the activity and differs widely among activities. We suggest a broad perspective be taken on risk management wherein risk and safety can be managed at different levels. Small boat fishing is a critical example with obvious critical points according to risk management. We also present suggestions for improving safety in small boat fishing.