Mandi Baker – författare

The benefits of being outdoors in a leisure context are widely acknowledged across a range of disciplinary perspectives (including tourism, therapeutics, education and recreation). These benefits include the development of: health and wellbeing; social skills; leadership and facilitation skills; personal, emotional and reflective abilities; confidence and identity creation. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, geographies and approaches, this book explores the opportunities that leisure in the outdoors provides for learning, developing and challenging. The authors in this collection challenge dominant discourses of outdoor leisure through their selection of outdoor activities, theoretical approaches and modes of representation. All offer fresh insights and thinking into how leisure in the outdoors can be understood. The book covers a range of outdoor conceptualisations that challenge the reader to think deeply and broadly about the common threads which bind the broad field of outdoor leisure together. The experiences explored in this book range from suburban outdoors to wild places, surfing to mindful reflection, and trail walking to Nordic skiing, and encompass a broad spectrum of people. This book will appeal to outdoor scholars from a variety of contexts, including recreation, tourism, and adventure. It provides: ·original and leading research across layers of meaning attributed to and drawn from leisure experiences in the outdoors; ·value in theorising the notions of outdoor experiences; ·a variety and scope of contexts and approaches for students to draw on when learning about the field of outdoor leisure.

Drawing on a variety of perspectives, personal narratives, geographies and approaches, this book challenges dominant discourses of outdoor leisure, associated theoretical approaches and modes of representation regarding the access, inclusion and social justice of minoritised participants. We consider concepts like privilege, power, and empowerment to present a range of outdoor leisure experiences of people with diverse body shapes, races, physical abilities and health conditions, gender and sexual identities, ages, and beyond-human bodies. It offers fresh insights into how leisure in the outdoors can be understood, used, and accessed in ways in which willing participants of all kinds, and especially those who have not traditionally been included, supported and centred, can access the benefits of wellbeing, learning, development and challenges that outdoor leisure participation is revered for. The book covers a range of outdoor conceptualisations that challenge the reader to think deeply and broadly about the common threads which bind the broad field of outdoor leisure together. The range of participant experiences explored in this book encompasses everything from suburban outdoors to wild places, summer camps to scuba diving, dog walking to mindful reflection, and trail walking to electric bikes. The book was designed to transition from the merely academic world to the world of activism, offering thoughtfulness and empowerment in personal and professional decision making related to the field. It should appeal to anyone interested in the outdoors from a variety of perspectives (i.e., students, emerging leaders, long-established leaders seeking innovation, thought-leadership and change makers, policymakers, advocates and activists for inclusion and justice) and for a variety of contexts (i.e., recreation, education, tourism, and adventure).

Through analysis of everyday experiences and interactions, Baker unpicks the power nexus between counsellors, campers, peers and camp management, offering a deeper understanding of camp counsellor employment and the challenges for camp employees and employers.