Why has no-one mentioned Lord Stokes? Spent many hours having to fend for myself in the countryside courtesy of British Leyland cars...................
The statement was just a nice start to my question, why do I get the impression that in the UK many are entrenched in a sort of "Ray Way" dogma to the exclusion of further research and experimentation
Sorry, I should have provided a link to the full lecture for context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohZN2w_556o
the statement comes 4min 25seconds in.
I'd like to make it clear again, I'm not knocking Mr Mears here, as I said I'm sure that Mr Mears didnt intend that statement to come across the way it does and I imagine that he would be the first to credit his peers and those in his field who went before him.
The statement was just a nice start to my question, why do I get the impression that in the UK many are entrenched in a sort of "Ray Way" dogma to the exclusion of further research and experimentation
This social attitude is not Mr Mears fault, he is no more in control of the whims of fashion and social dynamics than anyone, otherwise he would have found a way to curb the childish 'chubby Mears' jokes
it reminds however me of a movement within the technical diving community a few years back called 'D.I.R.' "Doing it right" where everyone started wearing the same kit, the same way, and using the same techniques as George Irvine and Jarrod Jablonski.
This sort of doctrine is always inherently stifling to the progression of a subject and the development of new ideas
the 2 names i rememebr as a kid in the 80's while running riot in the woods all summer are Lofty Wiseman and Eddie Mcgee (infact i had the Mcgee kids book years before i heard of Lofty)
but that was all called Survival
Heyho ,
I'm confident that it's either out of context or something equally forgivable .
Not everyone is well read , I am and I still had to look up most of the names on your list of luminaries . And I do think you missed a couple . Sir William Smith ( Founder of the Boys Brigade ) and Baden-Powell . Before these no-one ( outside of the military ) went "camping" and without camping I doubt there would be much of a UK bushcraft/survival movement .
Cheers , Trev .
many folk European traditional and more exotic indigenous skills have been adapted and systemised for inclusion in formalised, codified, structured education and adjusted to the considerations of urbanisation and the complexity of contemporary western life-styles. These skills have been extracted from their broader indigenous, local and cultural traditions to be transported and exported across geographical, historical, political and cultural boundaries, which naturally engenders significant change, abstraction and loss of original cultural significance (Ellen & Harris, 2003). Therefore, ‘bushcraft’ points not to the uniqueness of local expressions of tradition and embedded environmental knowledge from which it may have originated, but to the manifold contradictory forms of a modern concept referred to as ‘bushcraft’
Thanks Stuart ...Tengu I don't know anything about St Kildeans or Fen Tigers, so I'm not entirely sure what your piont is? I think you are questioning my use of the term indigenous? If so I certainly would agree that it is a very loaded term, which anthropologists have written reams about and still don't agree on the the best term to use...indigenous, aboriginal can be extremely politically loaded, as is 'traditional'...and yes it is well documented that cultures assimilate aspects of surrounding cultures with whome they come into contact. 'Tradition' itslef is not seen as static, or based necessarily in the past, but as continiously reinventing itself to give rise to new outcomes and 'bushcraft' appears to be a very interesting example of that?