This is a composite article which brings together the international perspectives of the editorial board of the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning to explore the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on the field of adventure education and outdoor learning (AE/OL). Building on the AE/OL profession’s response to the impacts of COVID-19 on outdoor and environmental education in 2020, this article includes authors from 10 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Japan, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Wales. The statements discuss the impacts and opportunities of AI for the AE/OL professions, researchers, the nature of being in and with the outdoors, and Indigenous knowledges. The intention of this article is not to present a definitive summary of the state of the profession, but to provide examples of the ways in which diverse people are responding to the challenges and opportunities of AI. By sharing these views, and identifying some commonalities, we hope that AE/OL educators, practitioners, researchers and managers can creatively and cautiously seize the opportunities of this technological revolution.
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This article investigates the transformative impacts of regular nature-based adventure activity engagement and its long-lasting effects on eudaimonic well-being (EWB), specifically mental health. Although extant research highlights a wide range of well-being and mental health benefits from participation in such pursuits, less is known about experienced outdoor adventure enthusiasts for whom adventure is a fundamental and transformational part of their lives. The study builds on an existing conceptual framework that synthesizes pertinent research concepts on nature-based activity engagement and subjective well-being benefits. It presents key findings from 40 semi-structured in-depth online interviews with respondents from the UK, Germany, and Serbia. Interview data were collated and analyzed using a thematic framework approach. The findings highlight the importance of outdoor adventure activity engagement for respondents’ mental and physical health and long-term well-being. Regular activity participation can be transformational in reducing feelings of ill-being and enhancing EWB. It can improve self-efficacy and identity development and promote the fulfilment of psychological needs, facilitated by key transformational catalyzers. Continually entering a liminal state, experiencing emotions, and overcoming challenges and risks during engagement are crucial to “successful” long-lasting transformation. Further research should continue to explore adventure’s transformational and EWB benefits to develop long-term data.
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Methodological challenges are rarely discussed in depth among outdoor adventure tourism scholars. Despite the prevailing qualitative approaches in this field, and the recognition that the fleetingness of the human experience and the non-linearity and unpredictability of the more-than-human world have the power to influence the research process, the messy, negotiated and often contested researcher’s role has been less considered. In addressing this, the aim here is to critically discuss the methodological approach to explorations of the outdoor experiences through deconstructing the researcher’s role. Through renderings of the existentialist propositions of being in the world and a poststructuralist philosophy of fluidity and flux, the attention is granted to embodied experiences as a way of generating knowledges. Being situated in the research setting, space is created for interrogation of the processual dimensions of commodified outdoor journeys from an emic, researcher-as-tourist perspective. Research in the outdoor scenaria is by no means a linear process but rather a messy, complex and often ruptured journey, further complicated by the ethical concerns, struggles and idiosyncrasies of the researcher. I thus discuss the nuances and complexities of doing the embodied research and the haphazard ways of data collection. In shifting attention to more existential aspects of being in the outdoors through the process of post-experiential reflections, discomfort emerged as a critical quality of the outdoor experience. I thus illuminate the significance of embodied research and epiphenomenal discoveries in the production of new knowledges, to which greater attention, both in theoretical and methodological conversations, should be paid in the future.
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