Graduation Date
Summer 2020
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Sociology
Committee Chair Name
Dr. Jennifer Eichstedt
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Dr. Elizabeth Rienzi
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Subject Categories
Sociology
Abstract
The expectations of normative behavior in outdoor recreation are often taken for granted and naturalized within dominant cultural narratives about human/nature interactions. In particular, expectations of silence and an absence of evidence of humans and human sounds (anthrophony), are grounded within an understanding of nature and a wilderness/urban paradigm framed by whiteness. Hip-Hop provides an interesting point of analysis for thinking about the binary opposition of wilderness and urbanness. The intersection of Hip-Hop and wilderness is also the starting point for my research. This research aims to speak to just a few ways that white and masculine social norms in outdoor recreation settings operate as technologies of exclusion. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 14 outdoor recreators, educators, and professionals, illuminated five technologies of exclusion within outdoor practice: 1) the social, cultural, and economic capital barriers to getting started, 2) the obscure standardization and operationalization of Euro-centric definitions of nature, wilderness, outdoor recreation, and front country and back country, 3) the role of competency and ecological ethics in navigating risk and trustworthiness, 4) the practice of policing bodies and practices that are seen as threatening to outdoor spaces, and 5) the politics of noise, silence, and anthrophony.
Citation Style
ASA
Recommended Citation
Henderson, Leonard Alexander, "Ain't no love in the heart of the mountains: hip-hop, exclusion, and the White Wilderness" (2020). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 406.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/406
