Are you Mad? An investigation into the motivations of adventure sports
participants as regards risk, fear and extreme hardship; for recreation.
(by
This qualitative research investigates why some of us (me
included) want to put our minds and bodies through extremes of physical and
psychological trauma. On a resent trip to Ben Nevis I was amazed to see some
people trying to climb the mountain in some of the worst conditions I have
seen. One of our party exclaimed “what are they thinking?’ needless to say we
turned back and left them to it.
This is a typical example of my research area. What drives
people to do such mad things and put themselves in danger (let alone others) to
risk life and limb, for what? Firstly I needed to look at my motivations and to
do this I have used a personal narrative to investigate this phenomenon. The narrative is about a trip to the European
Alps, which culminated in me falling into a crevasse. The falling into the
crevasse was only part of the story and it led me to publish the story as a ‘Narrative
of Fear’. The data revealed some of my fears but more importantly why I was
putting myself through such ordeals for my pleasure.
I also needed to look at why others did the extreme sport of
climbing and mountaineering. I had a collection of stories from recreational
and some semi professional climbers, put together in a readable volume, ‘Merits
of Afternoon Drinking’. This also reveals a huge depth of data and gives
indications that there are many reasons why some wish to risk everything.
The research also looks at narratives from a broad range of
story telling methods. Why do people tell these stories and who are they for?
Are these stories needed to be told or wanted to be told? As non fictional
stories are the way we learn and develop skills and understanding I want to
investigate if the written narrative is a better way of storytelling.
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