New Zealand's adventure culture: Is Hillary's legacy a bungy jump?

Abstract

The 1953 ascent of Mt Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepal's Tenzing Norgay is seen as the last heroic adventure of the era of geographic discovery. Hillary's practice provided New Zealanders with an icon of adventure, an adventure template, and a globally recognised adventure image. The contemporary iconic global image of New Zealand adventure, however, is the commercial tourism practice of bungy jumping. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's conceptualisation of distinction, cultural recognition, and social interaction guide this paper's exploration of New Zealand's adventure culture. The paper examines the practices and narratives of twelve socially recognised adventurers with distinction, who span the half‐century from Hillary's 1953 image‐setting success. These adventurers share bedrock cultural beliefs, but display variation in their adventure practices and produce conflicting narratives that inform and influence New Zealand's adventure culture, adventure participation, and adventure image. The paper concludes that although the physical leisure practices of adventure transform through time, their social recognition and success is referenced to, and a product of, the inherited values of past adventure heroes. In the New Zealand context bungy jumping embodies the adventurous cultural legacy of Hillary's adventure distinction.