Vinathe Sharma-Brymer

In this chapter, the authors examine adventure tourist experiences before, during, and after activity participation. Traditional notions linking the adventure experience to risk and thrills are explored alongside more contemporaneous experiences. The Western-oriented adventure tourist experience as a globalised phenomenon is examined against localised, culturally diverse, and inclusive experiences of adventure. In this light, the authors offer reflections from Western and non-Western adventure tourism engagement. They further explore the notion of adventure tourist experiences from non-Western perspectives, such as spiritual tourism involving adventure, and localised microadventure tourism popular in traditional societies. Through this comparative analysis, this chapter tries to clarify the types of adventure tourists and their lived experiences influenced by socio-cultural, religious, and economic factors. The themes examined point to a more holistic understanding of adventure tourists’ choices in relation to the type of adventure activity or programme, and level of engagement for optimum experience and benefits. These have implications for management initiatives.

In this chapter, the author presents and discusses how the adventure experience facilitates a desire to give back to nature. The author analyses different types of adventure as experienced by Indian women using an autoethnographic framework to discuss the meaning-making processes of deep connection with self, values, identity, and choice-related positionality. These influence attitudes and behaviours for strengthening the relationship with nature through adventure. The implications of the results show (1) how varieties of adventure experiences impact the relationship with nature and (2) point towards understanding how women from traditional patriarchal societies participate in and identify with outdoor adventure as a transformational experience for self-growth. Further research could engage with the perspectives of diverse population groups from non-western cultures to study their meaning-making process of outdoor adventure and personal development and the impact these experiences have for giving back to nature.

This chapter explores the conflictual location of leisure in Indian women's lives that religion, caste, class, formal education, and financial independence affect deeply. Autoethnography is applied as a methodology to analyse research data gathered from five college-educated, urban, upper-caste Indian women including the author herself. Autoethnography allows for the interrogation of broader processes of inequalities that shape lived experiences, particularly the interpretation of sociocultural contexts of life. The participants perceived leisure time embedded in socializing, religious and cultural gatherings, and family and community events. These collectively form the place, space, and events of women's leisure. Without assigning leisure a defined personal time, their leisure experiences carried layered meanings. It was a location of conformity, resistance, negotiations, desire, conflict, and transformation. Outside the realm of traditional sociocultural experiences, the women were becoming conscious of choice and decision-making capacity in their personal leisure. Their narratives provide insights into the experience of leisure with the nuances of strategies and agency.

In this chapter, the authors position themselves as insider and outsider applying collaborative autoethnography to narrate their personal accounts of the elephant phenomenon in India. They also reflect on issues that have affected elephants in the interrelational world of human-elephant interactions. The authors write together as collaborative autoethnographers storying how human-elephant relationship differs between and across cultures and feelings. Yet, their intention is to deepen the understanding of that relationship through common standpoints for collectively shared actions.

Equality for all genders, reflecting that gender is not a simple binary, is about individuals being able to lead their everyday lives autonomously, with their own freedom to maximize their quality of life. Indian women living an urban life appear to have access to individual and collective leisure opportunities. However, their lived experience of indoor and outdoor leisure are heterogeneous and complex. A range of sociocultural, economic and religious factors affect women's leisure choices and, especially, the freedom to enjoy outdoor leisure. Examining the complexities embedded in women's constructions and experiences of outdoor leisure may help in addressing gender inequalities at another level. This requires understanding the multi-layered complexities of Indian women's lives that are intersected by caste, class, education, financial income, geographical location and invisible sociocultural factors. Indian women's outdoor leisure experiences are deeply linked to rights, social justice, human capabilities and quality of life. In that regard, there are both similarities and differences with issues associated with women's leisure in India and Western societies. A collective effort to further research that adopts an intersectionality approach may illuminate invisible issues that women from heterogeneous contexts experience. While needed for women, such an approach may be beneficial for all genders and society in general.

In recent years, research has shown that nature and pets have a profound impact on positive wellness outcomes and lifestyle behaviors. In this chapter, we provide evidence for the importance of nature and pets, otherwise referred to as companion animals, in facilitating human wellness, and point to the implications of this evidence for the development of policy and practice initiatives. Specifically, we argue that nature and pets have important roles in the initiation and enhancement of wellness lifestyle habits and outcomes across multiple wellness domains. Evidence indicates that interacting with nature and pets positively influences emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, occupational, and social wellness [1]. Viewing pictures and videos of nature, being active in the presence of nature, and immersive experiences in nature have proven to have resulted in enhanced levels of wellness.

The authors in this entry discuss flourishing and eudaimonic well-being in the context of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of good health and well-being which are set to be achieved by 2030. Firstly, an outline of the SDGs is presented, followed by a brief overview of contemporary perspectives on well-being. Thereafter, in order to clarify the notion of eudaimonic well-being, some of the debates on the definitions of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being are explored. Well-being is revealed to be an evolving multidimensional concept that is accepting of multiple perspectives. The authors then discuss traditional and emerging literature that explores the applicability of eudaimonic well-being and flourishing as it pertains to sustaining the holistic health of global human populations.

Indian women’s connection to the outdoors is a multilayered location, contesting unequal gender relations, power, and control. Their resistance to those practices with agency is their actionable space. Experiencing denial, conflict and dilemma, they are proving to be relatively capable as change agents, demonstrating the connection between land and women. Several intersecting points are interwoven with women’s personal and political life, reflecting their individual relationship with the outdoors—their land-based practices as peasants fighting for their basic survival, as women challenging gender inequalities to access the outdoors, and as leaders of outdoor learning. As actionable women, they are changing the notion of women’s ways of living the land connection and the perception of “women being outdoors” scenario.

This chapter shows how, if managed effectively, participation in some sports can cultivate a deeper environmental identity and pro-environmental behaviors. It argues that traditional sport will only be able to contribute to the development of an enhanced environmental identity if fundamental characteristics are changed. The chapter focuses on outdoor and adventure sport (OAS) as an appropriate medium for the development of a deeper environmental identity. It provides an ecological dynamics perspective on sport and sport participation with its focus on the individual–environment relationship as it provides a principled framework for managing and implementing sport participation and the creation of a deeper environmental identity. The chapter shows how OAS might be designed to enhance environmental identity and pro-environmental behaviors. It examines the word environment specifically relates to outdoor, natural landscapes, and the natural world as differentiated from urban, sterile, fixed, or manicured sport pitches and grounds.

We were not using English language anywhere around us except for school. So I faced this dilemma — why were they forcing us to learn this language which was not practically used in my life. I was told that English would be the medium of instruction in college. But I asked myself can't we continue our education in our own language? Why are these people forcing us to learn this language? I developed an aversion towards English language from the beginning. I also had this inferiority complex about this language. Even today I hesitate to speak in English. (Nirmala, 38-year-old Indian woman)
Two very different perspectives are evident in contemporary educational goals. One focuses on creating a trained workforce to adapt to the needs of industrialisation; here education links with economy. Another seeks to enrich a learner's quest in relation to self and identity. Both create tensions and dilemmas in a learner in a postcolonial society. Understanding and addressing the educational experiences of these learners in present times demand a particular sensitivity towards ‘educated hybrids’ and ‘dislocated migrants’. With particular reference to gender and feminism, Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2003) places the onus on creating sensitivity through pedagogy to understand these complexities: