“Going Above and Beyond:” The Emotional Labor of Adventure Guides

Abstract

This paper offers an ethnographic account of the emotional labor of adventure guides at Wanderlust, an outdoor adventure trip provider. Three of the guide responsibilities involved emotion work: ensuring safety, generating fun, and encouraging a sense of community. This created a demanding and prescriptive set of emotional expectations for guides, which they attempted to manage using a variety of strategies. While guides came to see their organizational role as a persona that they enacted on trail, they resisted the notion that they were acting. Overall, the examination of emotional labor of guides makes apparent the extent to which outdoor adventure resembles fantasy. However, the fantastical characteristics tend to be overshadowed by the discourse of authenticity that surrounds outdoor adventure.

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