Are You an Outdoor Writer of Color, LGTBQ++, Disabled, Indigenous, Neurodivergent? This Might Be for You
You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!
The future of the outdoors is diverse: are you part of that?
One of my readers referred a travel blogger of color to me yesterday. I wanted to write about this for those who might be interested. When I made a suggestion to him for professional affiliation, I realized that this might be a good place to make a larger invitation.
First, some context
For all of us who travel, we are, I hope, also very aware that outdoor spaces all too often have been uniquely unwelcoming to all but the White male. Even in places long inhabited by Indigenous peoples which have been colonized, which is everywhere, locals were often not used as guides despite the fact that their knowledge far outstripped that of the colonizers, and their need for income was desperate.
That’s changing, and that’s a good thing.
A good example of this are the Galapagos Islands, which for years imported European and other ex-pat guides instead of utilizing the expertise of the people living on the islands themselves. Ecuador changed that policy so that some of the wealth is shared. It’s not perfect but it’s a step in the right direction.
The best of adventure companies are changing their policies. Some established those more inclusive policies years before it became obvious that they were necessary. One such outfit, Amazonia Expeditions near Iquitos, Peru, runs a research and hotel facility on the Tahuayo River. Some years ago Dr. Paul Beaver began using women guides, including lesbian women.
That policy was met with stiff resistance by some of the male staff.
Beaver’s facilities offer the best wages on the river. All the communities count on their jobs there. He made made it clear that if anyone didn’t like his policies, they would be let go.
It only took one firing for that message to make it up and down the river as swiftly as a local could paddle. Nobody else complained. Today, guides of all backgrounds, sexual preferences and the like are part of the picture.
As a writer, I find such changes incredibly exciting. As a consumer of adventure travel, the more I see outfitters hiring locally, engaging locally, the more excited I get about the future of adventure travel.
As a disabled veteran, I am equally excited about seeing wilderness spaces opening up their accessibility to more and more people who heretofore would never be able to explore. I’m working with outfitters like Colorado Jeep Tours which specializes in trips for the deaf and for fellow disabled veterans. And there is much more coming.
But what about the writers themselves? What about you?
The adventure space has not been particularly welcoming to women in general to begin with, despite the fact that women have held their own. This has always been the case in tribes where elder women are often the best trackers/hunters, but also in the space where we are doing the adventuring and writing about it.
It’s been hard enough as a female to find acceptance. Imagine the challenge for many other categories of folks who also have every right to be in the wild and write about it.
Those of us who both adventure and write haven’t seen enough representation in our ranks, men and women speaking to their unique experiences as people of color, queer, transgender, Indigenous, disabled and all the other unique takes and voices which belong in the wild, as do we all.
One professional organization that I joined a few years ago, Outdoor Writers Association of America, was long a bastion of the White male writer. I joined it with the help of a fellow veteran, Chez Chesak, who, among other things, heads the DEI committe that I attend.
Chez is dedicated to engaging and including people who not only want to engage the adventure space but perhaps more importantly, write about it. Those writers are key to getting more folks out into the wild.
The outdoors is exactly the kind of space where representation offers the invitation for more people to come out and play.
There’s a concerted effort on right now to reach out to professional journalism organizations such as The National Association of Black Journalists and others which provide professional affiliation and development for such writers.
OWAA’s hope is to invite those journalists whose beat is the outdoors to also consider participating in and joining OWAA as well. That way outdoor journalism increasingly represents not only society, but also how society plays.
For the sake of transparency, I am not on OWAA’s membership committee. I get nothing if a fellow Substacker or other platform writer joins OWAA.
What I do get is the satisfaction of watching this traditionally White-male-dominated industry open its doors to those who have been shut out.
You and I are needed as writers. Whether you’re a person of color, female, LGBTQ++, disabled, neurodivergent or any other category, and you love the outdoors enough to write about it professionally, I hope you will consider OWAA.
The future of the wild is diverse.
To make that happen the wild needs diverse writers.
If that’s you, if you’re wild at heart and you write about the wild, it might be a good move to join a professional organization which is actively looking to support those voices. I have found this to be a welcoming space for this aging female, and I want to do my part in extending that welcome so that we all benefit.
Thanks for hanging with me today. I hope you got value, and I also hope, if this is you, you also got inspired. If so please consider
If you know an outdoor journalist/blogger of color, LGBTQ++, disabled, neurodivergent who might be interested, please consider
This was kind of interesting to read. It's a space that probably not many think about.
There's one writer I subscribe to here: Anne Reuss. You'd love her...she's a personal trainer who happens to be deaf. What an interesting niche, right? Go check her out.