Abstract
In Making Meaning Out of Mountains: The Political Ecology of Skiing, Mark Stoddart exposes the contradictions and ‘ecologies ironies’ (p. 5) that lie at the heart of skiing. The modern and popular variant of the sport, we are told, is far removed from its Scandinavian philosophical heritage. Where Norwegians once preferred a form of skiing which combined a love of nature with character-building and personal development, the 21st century skier takes to the slopes encumbered with a paradox: enjoying a sport which is promoted as a benign form of human–nature interaction, but which is hidebound to a global tourist industry dependent on carbon-emitting air travel and the provision of consumer comforts. When confronted by Stoddart with this ambivalence, the skier typically responds with a preference for green tourism, but a demand for ‘all the bells and whistles of a modern ski resort’ (p. 20).
Stoddart skilfully explores these ambivalences in a multi-layered and engaging critical commentary of the environmental issues that are affecting the development of ski resorts in British Columbia. The book is arranged over seven chapters and is derived from a doctoral thesis. The findings presented emerge from a qualitative mixed-method study, based upon field observations, textual analysis of media products and reportage, and nearly four dozen interviews with skiers completed at two resorts: Whistler Blackcomb to the north of Vancouver, and Whitewater in the Selkirk Mountains near Nelson. The sites offer contrasting locations through which the political economy of ski resort development and visitor experiences are explored. Where Whistler Blackcomb ‘resembles a rural, mountainous version of a themed fantasy city of consumerism and riskless risk’ (p. 124), the peripherality of Whitewater to global ski-tourism networks is emphasised. This contrast is more than an empirical convenience; it gives us insight into the different actor-networks shaping the material and discursive constructions of the environment at each site.
The book is one of the few studies that take non-human nature in mountain sport seriously. Other studies of snowsport cultures have tended towards anthropocentric and socio-cultural accounts, applying critical social theories to illuminate the embodied practices, lifestyles and cultures of snowboarding and skiing (Thorpe, 2011), or the intertwining of modernity and mountains (Coleman, 2004), leaving sustained consideration of the environment to mountain-based lifestyle sport cultures relatively under-developed (see Wheaton, 2013). So, the identification by Stoddart as an environmental sociologist of sport in this growing literature is shrewd and refreshing. The intersections between environment and society make for an ambitious scope. Stoddart keeps in play cultural, political, economic, social, technological and environmental factors and this makes for a rich account of the industries and interests mobilised in the development of ski resorts and the promotion of snowsport lifestyles. Multiple themes are addressed: sustainable development, social justice activisms and land rights campaigns, the mediatisation and marketing of mountainous nature, embodied relationships and environmental subjectivities, and questions of identity and difference of consumers and participants. As the book concludes, ‘There is more to skiing than simply having fun in the snow’ (p. 177).
The organising frame of enquiry is through ‘political ecology’, a field developed in geography and development studies to highlight the social, economic and political dynamics of environmental change. Many important global issues are covered under its loose conceptual umbrella – environmental degradation; enclosure and dispossession; the distribution of environmental harms; material and discursive struggles over land and natural resources; human and non-human injustices – in ways that de-privilege an anthropocentric ontology in the process of trying to understand the social processes that coalesce in uneven socio-natural configurations. Many of these themes are touched upon in the book, which skilfully captures the co-existence of people, animals, technologies, climate, and land – in mountain sportscapes. Stoddart draws upon the influential work of Michel Foucault on ‘biopower’ and Donna Haraway on ‘naturecultures’ to explore these themes.
Each chapter seeks to apply and develop concepts relevant to the evidence. The selected analytical emphasis is introduced and summaries are offered at the end of each chapter to pull key findings together. The introductory chapter provides a methodological and contextual overview to the book. Ecopolitical power struggles inherent in the contested meanings of the mountain sportscape are the focus for Chapter 2. This section is an excellent example of how theories can be applied to illuminate the nature of the case in ways that encourage engagement with the nature of the empirical phenomenon under study. Stoddart brings from his sociological toolbox a range of concepts and ideas to make sense of the social forces and processes that have shaped ski resorts. The tools are carefully inspected. John Urry’s ‘tourist gaze’ concept is questioned as the kinaesthetic and embodied pleasures of ski tourism are discussed. The notion of a mountainous sublime is developed as Stoddart unravels the discourses of wilderness and nature articulated by resort companies and First Nation protesters in seeking to either enshrine or delegitimise uses of the mountain. Haraway’s ‘naturecultures’ gives a sense of the complex entanglements of non-human and human technology and nature, in the ideological and cultural production of mountain sport. The latter in particular carries analytical utility in making us think about the relational webs and networks in which mountain sport is placed.
Chapter 3 develops these themes through highlighting the role of skiing technologies and mobility networks in extending skiers’ capacities to interact with mountains. As a non-skier myself, Stoddart has done a good job here in conveying the material qualities of the sport as it is practised at Whitewater and Whistler Blackcomb. You get a palpable sense of what it is like to consume the products, technologies and experiences the resorts have to offer and the range of investments that are made in monitoring snow conditions, weather and risks, as participants take to the slopes. Throughout the book Stoddart seeks to challenge simple binaries and Bruno Latour’s actor-network theories are used to think about the agency of nature in the skiing experience; how non-humans – snow, trees, grizzly bears – intervene to produce what it is to ski. Haraway is turned to again; this time the cyborg metaphor is applied to reveal the reliance on technologies by the ski industry, from mundane pieces of equipment used in the everyday practices of participants – boots, goggles, gloves – to landscape-scarring infrastructures of chairlifts and gondolas installed to access the mountains, the presence of which are routinely erased by the media. While these technologies put us closer to nature there are also costs and contradictions. These dimensions are present in the voices of skiers that occasionally punctuate the text. Maurice prefers backcountry routes to get away from crowded resorts, but owns a ‘gas spewing’ snowmobile. Peg is frustrated with heli-skiing and its impacts on mountain caribou. Jason bemoans the energy consumption of chairlifts and yet defends skiing as ecologically benign (pp. 79–80). The central thesis is honed in these passages; that it is difficult to square the tensions between sporting and environmental values.
Chapter 4 delves further into the environmental subjectivities of skiers, utilising a fuller range of interviews to outline their understandings of the biopower relations between the ski industry and nature. A useful network analysis of skiers’ articulations of environmental concerns is provided which displays the particular and shared environmental issues present at Whitewater and Whistler Blackcomb (pp. 110–111). Environmental consciousness and behaviours are then discussed at length. The latter half of the chapter probes the cultural construction and espousal of a pro-environmental standpoint by the resorts and Stoddart draws attention to some environmental education initiatives created by the ski resorts, though underlines the ‘patterned silence’ of environmental impacts (p. 123).
Chapter 5 on skiing and social power pays its dues to critical sport sociologists in discussing the social and spatial differentiation of snowsport participation. The passages on skiing and gendered sportscapes highlights some useful literatures in this area and the points concerning mountains as a masculine space and gendered skiing styles are well made, though this is familiar territory for sociologists of lifestyle sport. However, this chapter feels more like a hangover from a doctoral thesis and there is a noticeable change in tone and direction which distracts from the overall contribution of the book.
The concluding chapter evaluates prospects for change. We are left to conclude that although the skier has potential to radically re-evaluate society–environment relations; the task is an uphill one. Stoddart declares, ‘Skiing involves flows of power among humans and non-humans, and it should be seen as part of our political ecology, where the purified boundaries between human politics and non-human nature break down’ (p. 177). But in the final instance the answers are less a revised philosophical outlook and more about the hard graft of collective organisation and activism to press environmentalist concerns and pressure the ski industry to change its ways. A final epilogue, relating the findings of the study to the Vancouver Olympics, rues a missed opportunity here, as patriotic celebration overshadowed protests for environmental and social justice.
There are some minor criticisms to be levelled. In aiming for breadth of treatment tinged with shades of nuance, Stoddart sacrifices clarity as intellectual debts are serviced. At times the book feels overburdened with political ecology’s conceptual pluralism and eclectic theoretical concerns. Students new to these ideas will find the theories and concepts hard going and will need to seek introductory materials to pick their way through the material. Whilst more advanced scholars may feel Stoddart has skipped past critical commentary on the intersections of capitalism and nature all too easily. In places, the theoretical ambition of the book is not matched by comprehensive empirical research. The material on First Nation communities and their battles with ski resort development, for instance, is over-reliant on media sources and is worthy of a separate chapter underpinned by a more extensive dataset including interviews with key actors. Further, while extracts from interview transcripts with skiers are successfully used to illustrate the discussion, I was left wanting more insight into how social background and participatory histories shape the cultural attitudes and lived practices of the skiing community as the ecological contradictions inherent in the sport are worked through.
Despite these concerns, Stoddart has produced a wide-ranging and stimulating study. His emphasis on the complexities of people–environment relationships is a vital contribution to help us better understand the investments made in the social production and materialities of mountain sportscapes. Stoddart’s approach will undoubtedly provoke further empirical case studies into ski resort development. I’m left thinking what might be occurring elsewhere, in Scotland, China or Iran, as mountainous nature is packaged and sold to different types of consumers in resorts with different media outlets, actor-network footprints, climates and social movement histories? The book raises these questions and points to some directions to achieving them, never losing sight of the tensions, contests and contradictions inherent in the political ecology of skiing. Making Meaning Out of Mountains should be recognised as a key text in sport sociology and sport geography for those seeking to understand the complexities of snow sport cultures and the commodification of the mountainous sublime.