Beyond Ethnic Stereotypes – Identities and Outdoor Recreation Among Immigrants and Nonimmigrants in the Netherlands

Abstract

Studies on immigrants' recreational use of greenspace have tended to focus on ethnic groups as homogeneous entities. In a qualitative study based on group interviews, this article focuses on the cultural diversity among and within ethnic groups. We used an identity perspective to study outdoor recreation of young Dutch adults with Chinese, Turkish, or nonimmigrant backgrounds. Results show that primarily personal identities, age, and ethnicity inform recreational behavior. The multiplicity of peoples' identities results in more heterogeneity between and within ethnic groups, as well as more homogeneity between immigrants and nonimmigrants, than commonly described. When immigrants are considered as a homogeneous group that underparticipates in outdoor recreation, individual immigrants who frequently participate in outdoor recreation are overlooked. Furthermore, we show that acculturation does not progress at the same rate among all ethnic groups, and that ethnic identity may be sustained among second and subsequent generations through certain recreational activities.

Equity in Access to Outdoor Recreation—Informing a Sustainable Future

“…The exceptions to the set of constraints for lack of lifetime visitation include a lack of interest, cited as the second-highest constraint, and lack of information. Lack of interest may be reflective of more subtle aspects of discrimination, as was mentioned, where respondents may have used this general explanation for a feeling of not being welcomed, not fitting in, wishing to avoid a negative experience, or more generally not having developed an interest through lack of access and opportunity while growing up [26]. Studies applying specified response sets, and those employing in-depth qualitative approaches, have revealed some of these nuances in past research [24].…”

“…Recency of visitation revealed a somewhat different pattern, where ethnoracial variations were again evident, with ethnoracial minorities reporting greater gaps in the last visit to national forest lands, especially among Black/African American respondents. However, American Indian/Alaska Native respondents were similar in frequency of visitation to White/Caucasian respondents, indicating the importance of considering heterogeneity among ethnoracial minorities, where minorities are not homogeneous [22,26].…”

“…Focused programming is instituting a message of outdoor recreation as a shared cultural experience among ethnoracial minorities to advance inclusion through various means, including the use of social media platforms [11], and involving representatives from members of minority groups to share culturally relevant messages [45,46] and experiences [21,30]. These efforts aim to improve equity through affirming a message that outdoor recreation is part of ethnoracial minority cultures, increasing messages of belonging, and contributing to outdoor recreation as a part of cultural identity [11,26].…”

“…These outdoor recreation participation questions are examined by ethnoracial group. In addition, aspects of intersectionality concerning gender and age cohorts are explored to continue to contribute to the dialogue focused on the nuances of diversity [21,26,36,49].…”

Moving beyond the nature-based solutions discourse: introducing nature-based thinking

“…Furthermore they may create new urban aesthetics (Gobster et al 2007), and thus NBT challenges our traditional conceptualisation of wilderness. In general, cultural diversity in people's preferences for natural areas is underdeveloped (Kloek et al 2017), but Kowarik (2013Kowarik ( , 2018 described the need for diversity of ecological and aesthetic characteristics of urban nature, ranging from pristine wilderness to spontaneously emerged wilderness. Such studies show that biodiverse urban nature tends to be aesthetically pleasing in a broader sense than 'cultured' managed nature (Fischer et al 2018).…”