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Script of Mr. Brookes's Lecture, #4 |
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Reporter admin ,
Date 20040405
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Concluding remarks
I hope these examples have provided some insights into how history, geography, and society shape how Australians experience their country. I hope I have also provided some indications why a conversation about the ideas which are embedded in outdoor experiences, is an important conversation in Australia, and perhaps elsewhere. This short presentation is not intended to be last word in such a conversation, of course. Forms of universal, programmed education the outdoors that do not require local knowledge, can be found in outdoor therapy, packaged environmental education, and safety training. In Australia, these should be seen as part of a colonial tradition of importing ideas that do not sufficiently respect Australian environments.
I have referred to environmental sustainability, and to environmental education. I hope it is clear that I consider these are important considerations in Australia. But these concepts too are imported concepts, often expressed in universal terms, which deserve to be treated as possibly unsuited to Australia. However, what Australia does not have, at least for non-aboriginals, is the security of tradition and the knowledge traditional culture will provide a default society if change is avoided. The one thing Australians do know about their society and the Australian environment is that mistakes have been made in the past. There is no tradition to fall back on.
I want to emphasise that to understand outdoor experiences and what is learned from them in Australia, it is necessary to pay attention to the details. Not only are different things learned from different activities, but superficially similar activities may have quite different ideas embedded in them. Moreover, I have not fully discussed the importance of understanding experience as part of on-going relationships. The educational significance of outdoor experiences may not be in the insights that can be extracted from single episodes of experience, but how knowledge and meaning are woven into on-going relationships. I have also not fully discussed some broader patterns of experience, across society and across the landscape. Outdoor experiences are not uniformly distributed across society, nor are they uniformly distributed across the landscape. Understanding these distributions would be an important step in understanding how Australians collectively experience Australia.
The examples I have discussed involve change only at the level of individual practice, or perhaps in small communities. I discussed how social influences might be shaped or resisted in outdoor practices, and some reasons why one might do that. However, I began with a broad discussion of Australian society and a troubled relationship with the Australian environment. If one was to imagine what role outdoor experiences might have in shaping the future relationship between Australians and the land, then clearly the discussion must extend beyond the shaping of individual activities. That I have not done, and I think it is appropriate that I finish by acknowledging how small some of the suggestions I have made are in comparison to the scale of the problems I have mentioned.
Acknowledgements
The research on which this paper is based has been completed while I have been employed at La Trobe University, Australia.
This paper is based on a presentation given to the Japan Society for Sports Sociology. It contains revised and edited material from several papers and presentations:
1. Brookes, A., Lost in the Australian bush: outdoor education as curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2002. 34(4): p. 405 -- 425.
2. Brookes, A., Gilbert White never came this far South. Naturalist knowledge and the limits of universalist environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2002. 7(2): p. 73--87.
3. Brookes, A., Conservation of remnant Box Ironbark forests as an issue of community education. A challenge for outdoor environmental education, in The future is here. AAEE/VAEE/MESA 2001. 2001: RMIT Melbourne.
4. Brookes, A., Doing the Franklin. Wilderness tourism and the construction of nature. Tourism Recreation Research, 2001. 26(1): p. 11--18.
5. Brookes, A. Place and experience in Australian outdoor education and nature tourism. in Outdoor Recreation - Practice and Ideology from an International Comparative Perspective. 1998. Ume?, Sweden.
6. Brookes, A., Nature-based tourism as education for sustainability: possibilities, limitations, contradictions. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2000. 15/16: p. 25 - 32.
References cited
1. Carter, P., The road to Botany Bay: an exploration of landscape and history. 1988, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
2. McLennan, W., Year book Australian (number 79). 1997, Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.
3. Bolton, G., Spoils and spoilers: a history of Australians shaping their environment. 2nd ed. 1992, North Sydney: Allen & Unwin. 190.
4. McLennan, W., 1998 Pocket Year Book Australia. 1998, Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.
5. Government of Canada, The state of Canada's environment 1996. 1996, Ottawa: Government of Canada.
6. Low, T., Feral future. The untold story of Australia's exotic invaders. 1999, Rinwood, Victoria: Penguin Viking.
7. Glynn, S., Urbanisation in Australian history, in Images of Australia: an introductory reader in Australian studies, G. Whitlock and D. Carter, Editors. 1992, University of Queensland Press: St Lucia. p. 229-239.
8. Day, D., Claiming a continent: a new history of Australia. 1997, Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
9. Harvey, D., From space to place and back again: reflections on the condition of postmodernity, in Mapping the futures: local cultures, global change, J. Bird, et al., Editors. 1993, Routledge: London. p. 3-29.
10. Routley, V.C., ed. Footsteps from the past 1894 - 1994. 1994, Melbourne Walking Club Inc.: Melbourne.
11. Brookes, A., A critique of neo-Hahnian outdoor education theory. Part two: ¡Æthe fundamental attribution error¡Ç in contemporary outdoor education discourse. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2003. 3(2): p. 119-132.
12. Brookes, A., A critique of neo-Hahnian outdoor education theory. Part one: challenges to the concept of ¡Æcharacter building¡Ç. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2003. 3(1): p. 49 -- 62.
13. Ransome, S., P. Peake, and A. Brady, eds. Box-Ironbark forests and woodlands investigation resources and issues report. 1997, Environment Conservation Council: Melbourne.
14. Brookes, A., Chapter 12: recreation and tourism, in Box-Ironbark Forests and Woodlands Investigation Resources and Issues Report, E.C. Council, Editor. 1997, Environment Conservation Council: Melbourne. p. 132-144.
15. Environment Conservation Council, Box-Ironbark. Forests and woodlands investigation and resources and issues report. 1997, Melbourne: Environment Conservation Council.
16. Brookes, A., Gilbert White never came this far South. Naturalist knowledge and the limits of universalist environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2002. 7(2): p. 73--87.
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