1 SLOW ADVENTURE Tourism In Hypermodernity ... - Perth College

enabled and dependent upon the technologies of the modern world, there is withinthem, a noticeable stepping away from the project of efficiency and speed. The closelymanaged experience is replaced by a focus on the particular, variable and localisedaspects of place and the method of exploration is the inverse of efficient; it isnecessarily ‘slow’. Counter-culture movements, such as slow food, are seen by authorssuch as Nilsson, Svärd, Widarsson and Wirell (2007) to be expressions of a stance thatvalues place-based relationships, local distinctiveness and process overhomogenisation and efficiency.But all of this is relative; most ‘slow’ adventure tourism products will have elements ofrationalisation, predictability and control. The fast-slow comparison is not a divide, but aspectrum of tourist possibilities and products. We cannot claim that slow adventure is inany sense an absolute standard with which to segment the tourism industry. Rather,slow adventure is a concept, which, like other elements of the slow movement, couldultimately attract some quality standards and assurances (and therefore to some extentbecome more rationalised).We use the cross-cutting planes of time, nature, passage and comfort which form a webof ideas connecting and dividing the dialectic between ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ adventure anddistinguishing slow adventure from slow travel / tourism. Time in this sense alsoencompasses the ‘decompression’ potential of slow adventure – journeys unfold athuman pace, meals take time to prepare; time is spent directly in the effort of journeyingand living. Memories may be created during the journey, but they may also be reconnectedwith. Characteristic of the fast adventure products is the snapshot photo soldback to the participant; tangible evidence of momentary achievement. Slow adventuresmight take photos along the way too, but there may also be new bodily adaptations,blisters, subjective understandings and new relationships to the world as prized effects.Nature, of course, has its own time frame, and the slow adventurer must attunethemselves to this phenomenon. For fast adventure, the vagaries of nature are oftenmanaged-out; the time-pressured consumer cannot wait for rivers to rise for their rafting18