Commodification
11th November 2014
There is something that has been nagging me for a while now. I live for my time in the hills, moorland or quiet wooded lanes. I have spent years studying the land, it's wildlife and it's culture. I have spent a small fortune on all the different type of kit now available to keep me warm and dry. However, I worry the great outdoors (TGO) has become another commodity to be be marketed and sold. The medium of the commodification process is positioned around and active lifestyle that is filled with excitement and adventure. The mediums of mountain biking, extreme sports, climbing, etc tap into the weekend warrior psyche promoted by commerce.
However, I have increasingly become aware that, through these activities, the outdoors is often only valued as a place to have an adventure, where the experience of 'thrills and spills' is the prime purpose. This means the impact of the search for fun and excitement is spreading itself into the wild and natural landscapes, where participants have little awareness of the aesthetic beauty or appreciation of the life that shares their activity space. In fact these activities fundamentally change the aesthetics and life of these landscapes. I believe this 'commodification effect' is reflected in the Lake Districts national park authority's approach to marketing the Park as a centre for adventure. The worry is that the effect of this policy has subtly and tacitly transformed the Lake District into a large, open theme park.
Another dimension to this commodification is how we cover ourselves in all manner of garments and use a plethora of kit to keep us dry, warm, cool, and locate where we are. These highly technical pieces of kit and clothing are a protecting layer, a barrier between us and the elements, while all the while we pretend we are truly experiencing the wild and unforgiving landscape. In fact we are viewing the TGO from our sterile, mobile laboratories, that come with satellites monitoring to guide our every step. We encase ourselves in spaceman suits to ensure the environment does not compromise our comfort. We see the outdoors, through the narrow slit of our highly breathable, lightweight waterproofs, but do we truly experience it with all paraphernalia attached and covering us?
The futuristic kit, the highly stylised activities we participate in are, by their very human design, bringing order to an unordered place. We change the TGO to match our thinking. Rebecca Solnit points out the human mind creates the world in his own image by identifying how a city, with its roads and building, clearly reflects the mind of man. This is not something nature would create. However, we also design the the outdoors in the same manner, where we tune it to suit our needs and make the landscape reflect our understanding of the world. TGO becomes an extension of our values and reflects, through the pathways, fences, barriers, access points and the activities we endeavour upon, our own concept of how the TGO should be.
As an example, I met someone who was enquiring about a GPS. He had used many different units before, but wanted to know the full specifications of this particular unit (chip speed, satellite response time, etc). He had used a GPS for the Hadrian's Wall path. I don't know this man, so my judgement may be harsh, but it seems his intense focus on the specifications of the GPS shows he is a victim of the commodification of the TGO. He has been sold a vision of what the outdoors is and what experience he should expect. He has been then told that the only way to achieve these heights of experience he will need product A and B etc. He will need to constantly know where he is, to the metre, require barometric and altitude information instantly, be able (at at touch) to plan each step to be taken in advance, whilst recording each step actually taken as this needs to be downloaded and shared with others.
In my mind I see him fixed, peering at the small screen of his GPS, waiting for it to tell him to turn left or right, or worse inform that he has now arrived, I worry he is therefore missing the whole point of the journey. Hackneyed I know, but it is the journey not the arrival that is important. ......and sometimes to not arrive at all is the greatest achievement. His journey was simple (you go east, or west and keep going) with a wall to your right or left!!!! The sun will come up and set in front and behind and you will know how the day has progressed. I am not sure if GPS man wanted to truly experience the a real outdoors, but merely have the retail experience and test his skills using very technical equipment.
I doubt he would deliberately try to get lost as a means to truly understand and appreciate the land he passed through. A position Rebecca Solnit suggests:
"To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implications that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography". RS
Does GPS man sees the TGO as a means to an end, rather than the end itself? Does he view the experience he gains, travelling through his surroundings, only possible if he has 'appropriate kit'? Does this testing mean he need not ever know he was actually in the TGO? Has he has no intentions of getting lost, wet, hot or cold? Whatever, I argue, he is a victim of the commodification of TGO as he is sold the 'vision' of what the TGO experience is by the agents of commerce. His understanding of his experience is one dictated by retailers, sports NGB marketing/recruitment strategies, media and bodies like the LDNP authority.
The 'true' TGO is not just a human experience, not if we are to truly understand and value the life outside our own. It seems we humans pursue (or only perceive ) an abstraction of the true nature of the TGO through the adventure activities we pursue.
The 'true' TGO is a wild and very uncertain place that behaves for its own reasons and reacts in its typically non human way.
Robert Macfarlane suggests the word wild comes from an earlier, possibly Viking word 'Wildus', which possibly translates as a meaning 'self willed.' This means the 'outdoors' has a conscience and will separate to our own; one we have no influence over. This is the 'true' outdoors and one that our adventure activities miss. We wander along paths we made, being directed by satellites that see only an image of the world, cocooned in layers of protective clothing, trying to capture the experience sold to us in a brochure, poster or marketing blurb, missing the true outdoors as the aim was primarily to make us buy stuff.
An outdoors seen in this sense means we are always safe and always know where we are, but we know nothing about where we are.
However, I have increasingly become aware that, through these activities, the outdoors is often only valued as a place to have an adventure, where the experience of 'thrills and spills' is the prime purpose. This means the impact of the search for fun and excitement is spreading itself into the wild and natural landscapes, where participants have little awareness of the aesthetic beauty or appreciation of the life that shares their activity space. In fact these activities fundamentally change the aesthetics and life of these landscapes. I believe this 'commodification effect' is reflected in the Lake Districts national park authority's approach to marketing the Park as a centre for adventure. The worry is that the effect of this policy has subtly and tacitly transformed the Lake District into a large, open theme park.
Another dimension to this commodification is how we cover ourselves in all manner of garments and use a plethora of kit to keep us dry, warm, cool, and locate where we are. These highly technical pieces of kit and clothing are a protecting layer, a barrier between us and the elements, while all the while we pretend we are truly experiencing the wild and unforgiving landscape. In fact we are viewing the TGO from our sterile, mobile laboratories, that come with satellites monitoring to guide our every step. We encase ourselves in spaceman suits to ensure the environment does not compromise our comfort. We see the outdoors, through the narrow slit of our highly breathable, lightweight waterproofs, but do we truly experience it with all paraphernalia attached and covering us?
The futuristic kit, the highly stylised activities we participate in are, by their very human design, bringing order to an unordered place. We change the TGO to match our thinking. Rebecca Solnit points out the human mind creates the world in his own image by identifying how a city, with its roads and building, clearly reflects the mind of man. This is not something nature would create. However, we also design the the outdoors in the same manner, where we tune it to suit our needs and make the landscape reflect our understanding of the world. TGO becomes an extension of our values and reflects, through the pathways, fences, barriers, access points and the activities we endeavour upon, our own concept of how the TGO should be.
As an example, I met someone who was enquiring about a GPS. He had used many different units before, but wanted to know the full specifications of this particular unit (chip speed, satellite response time, etc). He had used a GPS for the Hadrian's Wall path. I don't know this man, so my judgement may be harsh, but it seems his intense focus on the specifications of the GPS shows he is a victim of the commodification of the TGO. He has been sold a vision of what the outdoors is and what experience he should expect. He has been then told that the only way to achieve these heights of experience he will need product A and B etc. He will need to constantly know where he is, to the metre, require barometric and altitude information instantly, be able (at at touch) to plan each step to be taken in advance, whilst recording each step actually taken as this needs to be downloaded and shared with others.
In my mind I see him fixed, peering at the small screen of his GPS, waiting for it to tell him to turn left or right, or worse inform that he has now arrived, I worry he is therefore missing the whole point of the journey. Hackneyed I know, but it is the journey not the arrival that is important. ......and sometimes to not arrive at all is the greatest achievement. His journey was simple (you go east, or west and keep going) with a wall to your right or left!!!! The sun will come up and set in front and behind and you will know how the day has progressed. I am not sure if GPS man wanted to truly experience the a real outdoors, but merely have the retail experience and test his skills using very technical equipment.
I doubt he would deliberately try to get lost as a means to truly understand and appreciate the land he passed through. A position Rebecca Solnit suggests:
"To be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implications that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography". RS
Does GPS man sees the TGO as a means to an end, rather than the end itself? Does he view the experience he gains, travelling through his surroundings, only possible if he has 'appropriate kit'? Does this testing mean he need not ever know he was actually in the TGO? Has he has no intentions of getting lost, wet, hot or cold? Whatever, I argue, he is a victim of the commodification of TGO as he is sold the 'vision' of what the TGO experience is by the agents of commerce. His understanding of his experience is one dictated by retailers, sports NGB marketing/recruitment strategies, media and bodies like the LDNP authority.
The 'true' TGO is not just a human experience, not if we are to truly understand and value the life outside our own. It seems we humans pursue (or only perceive ) an abstraction of the true nature of the TGO through the adventure activities we pursue.
The 'true' TGO is a wild and very uncertain place that behaves for its own reasons and reacts in its typically non human way.
Robert Macfarlane suggests the word wild comes from an earlier, possibly Viking word 'Wildus', which possibly translates as a meaning 'self willed.' This means the 'outdoors' has a conscience and will separate to our own; one we have no influence over. This is the 'true' outdoors and one that our adventure activities miss. We wander along paths we made, being directed by satellites that see only an image of the world, cocooned in layers of protective clothing, trying to capture the experience sold to us in a brochure, poster or marketing blurb, missing the true outdoors as the aim was primarily to make us buy stuff.
An outdoors seen in this sense means we are always safe and always know where we are, but we know nothing about where we are.