Diversity Outdoors: Embodied ethnoracial inequalities and outdoor recreation in Europe

This project seeks to investigate how social inequalities are embodied through a comparative analysis of participation in outdoor recreation in Europe. Outdoor recreation such as hiking, climbing, swimming, but also birdwatching and camping is as a pivotal arena where racialized encounters and practices manifest. Given the current international attention to diversity and (lack of) anti-racism in Europe on the one hand, and the understudied emerging grassroots outdoor movements that challenge these discourses on the other, it is essential that we better understand the embodiment of ethnoracial inequality and its intersections with religion, gender, class and ability. This project undertakes a comparative ethnographic study of ethnoracial embodiment in outdoor recreation in Western-Europe, while asking the questions: What are the effects of ethnoracial embodiment on sociocultural diversity in outdoor recreation? How are bodies constituted as in or out of place in outdoor recreation in Europe? How is diversity in outdoor recreation influenced by local, national and transnational discourses and imaginations? What is the role of ethnoracial affinity and opposition in experiences of participating in, and contesting the status quo of outdoor recreation?The central objective is to gain insight in the commonalities and socio-cultural distinctiveness of how ethnoracial inequalities are embodied, experienced, and contested across Europe. It does so by analysing the embodied, sensorial dimensions of racialization (and its intersections) in outdoor recreation and developing a theorization on ethnoracial embodiment. The concept sensory ecology helps innovatively analyse identity-based outdoor groups and activities, outdoor recreation policies and discourses between local movements, national- level organizations and online communities. The project compares three countries with emerging identity-based outdoor groups: the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom