An Aural Ethnography of Black Breath

Across a range of diving locations, there is a need for greater understanding about what local divers value in their diving experiences and how this might lead to greater satisfaction with this activity in the future. In particular, the Mississippi Gulf Coast is known for its coastal beauty and the tourism that comes from the recreational activities associated with the water. However, scuba divers appear to be an underserved segment of the tourism industry. The coast provides opportunities for local scuba divers to take part in a range of diving activities, but there is minimal support for this tourism activity in Mississippi. To remedy this situation, this study argues that the functional, emotional, social, risk, and epistemic value local divers put on their diving experience leads to greater satisfaction in their diving experience. Accordingly, hypotheses are developed to directly link each dimension of perceived value to satisfaction with the diving experience. Results highlight a significant effect of overall perceived value on satisfaction with the diving experience. Further, the functional and social value factors were also found to have significant and positive relationships with diver satisfaction. Beyond providing greater understanding of what brings local divers greater fulfillment, a larger goal of this research is to discover future ways to better market scuba diving along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Makumbirofa, S.D. and Saayman, A., 2022. The influence of environmental value orientations on the overall scuba diving experience within a marine protected area. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(1), 168–181. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. This paper reports on the findings of a discrete choice experiment that aims to value the different attributes of the scuba diving experience in the Portofino Marine Protected Area (MPA), taking into account the various environmental value orientations of the divers. The attributes were divided into five different qualities—water visibility, diver crowding, species diversity, species number, and the willingness to pay—whereas the general awareness of consequences scale measured value orientations. Using a self-administered choice questionnaire, divers were asked to state their choice from different sets of attributes. A sample of 556 completed questionnaires were collected, with each respondent answering two random choice cards representing a choice between two different sets of attributes. A multinomial logit model was used to estimate scuba divers' willingness to pay for the various environmental attributes. The findings show that the most valued attribute for scuba divers in the Portofino MPA is underwater visibility followed by a less crowded dive site. The divers are predominantly egoistic in their value orientation, indicating that pro-environmental behaviour and intentions stem from self-interest. Regulations and education programmes that emphasise direct benefits to divers' diving experience would therefore encourage pro-environmental behaviour.

This study explored the relationship between anxiety and scuba diving performance of young individuals (N = 44; 16.9 yr., SD = 1.2) participating in an introductory scuba diving activity. The question was whether the well-known negative correlation between anxiety and scuba diving performance found for experienced and middle-aged scuba divers will be observed in young participants in their first dive experience. Diving instructors rated standardized scuba diving skills that were correlated with individual state and trait anxiety. There was no relationship between anxiety and scuba diving performance, neither for state nor for trait anxiety. This non-significant correlation between anxiety and performance was in contrast to recent findings observed for experienced divers or those who participated at a scuba diving training program. Considering the differences in methodological design between this study and recent investigations, further research is needed to reveal possible relations between anxiety, scuba diving performance, and panic behavior in beginner-level youth or adults.

Scuba divers, coral reefs, and knowledge of ocean acidification

Scuba diving has now become a regular feature of coral reef tourism and Sri Lanka has the potential to become a popular destination for scuba divers. Scuba divers were interviewed at two main diving destinations on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka: Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. Most respondents were "experienced" divers. Enjoyment, viewing marine life in their natural environments, and adventure were the main motives of divers at these destinations. In general, the perceptions of respondents on scuba diving as an ecotourism activity were positive across all experience levels. The self-rating experience positively influenced divers' responsible underwater behavior. As such, diving operators must be aware of the potential damage to coral due to loss of control/buoyancy underwater and intentional touching of coral reefs by less experienced/novice divers. Experienced divers with strong environmental consciousness supported conservation-oriented reef management actions. Conversely, experienced divers were resistant to management actions that directly or indirectly compromised their dive experience. Less experienced divers did not favor management actions that restrict them from accessing healthy coral reefs. Respondents expressed a general concern regarding the negative environmental impacts associated with an increase in visitors to sensitive marine habitats.

Artificial reefs may attract and sustain fish populations, but whether they resemble natural reefs is open to conjecture. This article addresses the question of whether artificial reefs are functionally acceptable to scuba divers. Research objectives were (1) to identify the nonmarket value of recreational scuba diving in offshore marine waters and (2) to ascertain whether the willingness to pay for scuba diving varied between users of natural and artificial reef habitats. A random sample of 1,059 scuba divers was used to estimate consumer's surplus associated with the diving experience. While natural and artificial habitats provide substantial economic value associated with diving, results indicate divers using natural reef habitats value their diving experience significantly more highly than those using artificial reef habitats. Also, substantial value from recreational diving use of artificial reefs suggests they serve as potential substitutes and thus may alleviate pressures on natural reef areas for conservation purposes.

One activity with potential to provide a direct incentive for reef conservation is scuba diving. In the absence of effective management, diving can also have negative impacts. This study shows how an understanding of diver specialization can be used to help manage diving and increase its effectiveness as an incentive-driven conservation activity. Surveys were used to assess motivations, satisfactions and dive history of divers in Phuket (Thailand) and categorize divers by degree of specialization. Highly specialized divers were more likely to be on a live-aboard trip than less specialized divers and placed greater importance on the characteristics of the dive itself rather than the trip. Less specialized divers put more emphasis on non-dive characteristics. Satisfaction levels differed significantly among specialization groups in terms of overall satisfaction with the dive experience, satisfactions compared with motivations and satisfactions with specific trip characteristics. Overall there was a decline in satisfaction levels with increasing specialization. These finding are compared to a wildlife tourism model that links impacts with client characteristics and suggests a displacement of specialists by generalists and changes in the limits of acceptable change (LAC) over time. The dive data supported this progression leading to increased industry competition and reduced opportunities to sustain a broad-based dive industry that will act as an incentive-driven mechanism for reef conservation. Specific actions related to reef access and zoning according to a diver opportunity spectrum (DOS), establishing LAC and monitoring programmes, enforcing safety and environmental regulations are suggested to promote a more sustainable approach to dive management. Social science insights can be used to aid reef management strategies and increase the potential for diving to contribute towards reef conservation.

Time to stop mucking around? Impacts of underwater photography on cryptobenthic fauna found in soft sediment habitats

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the performance of in-water scuba diving training activities and simple motor response time. Twenty-four students enrolled in a scuba course had their motor response times measured before and after a one hour training session. Pre- and post-dive response times were measured using an iPad application. Additionally, students were asked to complete a dive history questionnaire to determine their diving experience and health history. Statistical analysis indicated a significant training effect on response time in the recreational scuba divers F (1.00, 23.00) p =.033. The results of this study suggest that basic in-water scuba training activities may improve one's ability to elicit quicker movement responses and lead to faster cognitive processing.

Protest, Prayer Ashon T. Crawley (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution "dancing in one spot" by Ashon Crawley I can't breathe. Announced again. Return. Repetition. Grief. And what is protest but a solicitation, a plea, a desire? And what is protest but an insistence that otherwise is not only able to be enacted but can materially emerge in, and thus against, the normative world? And does, continually. And has emerged. And is emerging. Otherwise is the practice of breath and breathing. To breathe in an inhospitable place, in the context of settler colonialism and antiblack violence. To breathe inhospitable air and atmospheres. To breathe for black life, blackqueer possibility, is protest, is prayer. And to pray is to announce relationship. Relationship to and with, at the very least, one's breath. It is to make one's flesh implement, conduit, instrument, with hopes of a different kind of way to live and relate to one another. This American Life is antithetical to protest, to prayer. Though they might mythologize about la Niña, Pinta and Santa María, though they might wax [End Page 51] nostalgic about throwing boxed tea overboard ships as an act of dissidence, the American way of life has never been able to accommodate protest when it shows up and emerges from within black and indigenous and the various nonwhite strategies for living. I can't breathe. Announced again. Return. Repetition. Grief. And we are in a moment of intense protest, of intense prayer for otherwise than the normative world. There is no beginning to this resistance to white supremacy and its racial capitalism, its patriarchy, its cisheteronormativity. As soon as there was theft of land, of flesh, there was likewise resistance - protest and prayer - against such theft. But some might point to the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade as the most recent catalysts for struggling against the violence of policing, the violence of white supremacist organizing principles against our capacities to breathe, our being held captive by this regime of power and knowledge. I can't breathe. Announced again. Return. Repetition. Grief. And this particular moment against police violence is occurring against the backdrop of a world changing event, the pandemic, COVID-19. The stakes are clear because the danger is ever present. To gather in community breathing and sharing air when such breathing is the way the virus spreads, a virus that targets most emphatically though not only the lungs, is to enunciate the ways white supremacy targets the breath and breathing of black folks. We just wanna breathe. Breathe easy. Be easy. Live. What happens in protest, in prayer, is the practice of relation. Celebrate. I am thinking about the poetic form of black life and love, a form of breathing the word, the phrase, the stanza. Lucille Clifton is a guide. Won't you celebrate with me1, she questions. Celebration because white supremacy has done a lot to make whiteness a protected class but absolutely nothing about it seems joyful or celebratory. Look at the way they who are committed to white supremacy refuse masks, look at the way those committed to whiteness carry guns against people screaming Black Lives Matter as if this plea, this protest and prayer, is an attack. Fear. There is so much fear in white supremacy. And whiteness seems to be so much about squandering relation and sociality. Clifton's poem to me demonstrates sociality and relation—"won't YOU celebrate with me"—it is a call to together acknowledge the fact that white supremacy has not destroyed the joy she has with living. Shaped into a "kind [End Page 52] of life" but not one predicated on white supremacist logics, she celebrated a life that was also an outpouring, an unfolding into absolute possibility, absolute potential. We should learn from this outpouring. The poem is protest, is prayer. I can't breathe. Announced again. Return. Repetition. Grief. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy is capable of practicing harm but it cannot be nor produce nor practice a life of joy and celebration. It fails at its own attempt. There is an inventive capacity in black life that white supremacy cannot endure...

Slavery’s Archive and the Matter of Black Atlantic Lives

Background: The experience of Recreational SCUBA Diving (RSD) is unique and exciting because participants can feel innermost and special sensations. Aim: By exploring the role of the senses in RSD This paper seeks to illustrate the complex, kaleidoscopic and inter-relational connections beginner SCUBA divers make with aquatic environment within the sensorium experience for the first time. Methods: The present research draws upon the qualitative inquiry away from the positivist approaches to capture insider views, meanings, and interpretations. Audio-recorded semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 12 undergraduate students who had experienced a first-time SCUBA diving through Discover SCUBA Diving (DSD) Program were transcribed and thematically analyzed. A thematic analysis was performed with the Nvivo 11 Plus software package program. Results: Analysis illustrated that both positive and negative emotions are experienced due to (a) Diver Dimension of Marine Wildlife Touching, (b) Diver Dimension of Marine Wildlife Viewing, and (c) Diver Dimension of Marine Wildlife Hearing. Conclusion: The opportunity to experience aquatic environment for the first time during active leisure reflects participants’ ability, which offers encouragement, enthusiasm, well-being, and satisfaction. In unravelling the negative diving experience, as experienced by divers, we argue some physical and psychological distress and difficulty arise due to chemical and physical properties of aquatic environment, however. Keywords: Active Leisure, Aquatic, Sensorium, SCUBA Diving, Well-being.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect on satisfaction and behavioral intention by selection attributes (facility, price) according to the scuba diver's lifestyle (prestige pursuit type, fashion pursuit type, change pursuit type). A survey was conducted at a SCUBA diving shop located in Jeju island and Gangwon-do province with 250 adults aged 20 or older who had scuba diving experience at least once a year, and the final 205 people were used for the study. The collected data was subjected to frequency analysis and correlation analysis using the SPSS program, and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation analysis were performed through AMOS to verify the research hypothesis. As a result of verifying the fit of the research model, x²/df=1.874, CFI=.903, TLI=.888 RMSEA=.065. As a result of hypothesis testing, only change pursuit type SCUBA divers among lifestyle types were found to be affected by Facilities (t=2.111), Price (t=2.149). and also SCUBA diving shop facilities affect satisfaction(t=4.290) and behavioral intention(t=5.464). Most domestic SCUBA diving facilities are operated with similar facilities and prices, and are only available for a short period of time due to the specificity of the season. Therefore, only users with a change pursuit type lifestyle SCUBA divers have an impact on facilities and prices, and it has been verified they have a positive effect on satisfaction and behavioral intention by level of facilities.

Understanding scuba divers' response to coral bleaching: An application of Protection Motivation Theory

Scuba diving is a popular activity in small island destinations which is on the rise. However, it is particularly important to preserve the physical environment for small island developing states due to their unique biodiversity and fragile ecosystems. Scuba diving tourism in island destinations is provided mainly by dive operators who are responsible to deliver the scuba diving experience to tourists. However, despite the importance of sustainability for the tourism industry, it is unclear to which extent the marine environment or green issues are important for consumers. Studies are increasingly suggesting that sustainability is an important feature considered by consumers. However, information is sparse regarding the extent to which sustainability is a key component for customers when evaluating the scuba diving experience. In this study, 3109 text reviews from the Trip Advisor website across all 57 listed diving operators in Mauritius were selected for data analysis. Th e present study uses Leximancer, a text analysis software that conducts unsupervised analysis of natural language texts provided in an electronic format.The Gaze: Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Vol.9 2018 p.43-52