Spaces of play, spaces of responsibility: Creating dichotomous geographies of outdoor citizenship

This paper concerns the co-constitution of citizens and environments, and how the association of outdoor spaces produced as particular 'natures' with particular performative norms produces distinct spatialities of inclusion and exclusion. These issues are explored in relation to the moral geographies of outdoor access, whereby the realisation of citizen entitlements to perform outdoor activity depend on the spatial production of norms, practices and identities in relation to various 'natures'. Using mountain biking as an example, the paper explores how particular subjectivities become placed in the 'nature domesticated' of purpose-built trail centres and displaced from the 'nature wild' of mountains. Trail centres are positioned as places of play, ignorance and recklessness in which mountain bikers can belong, whilst mountains are constituted as places of responsibility, quiet contemplation and seriousness, in which mountain bikers are out of place. Such spatialisation, setting practices of play and responsibility in opposition to each other, is flagged as problematic in relation to the actualisation of citizenship entitlements, and in turn meeting a range of societal goals for health, wellbeing and ecological knowledges. Despite arguments that play is generative (rather than the 'other') of responsibility, there is evidence to suggest that such a dichotomy could become more materially realised, with implications for the ability of citizens to access and share space, and to translate their knowledge and experience from one 'nature' to another. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.