Title: High as a kite: exploring the positive emotion of interest through extreme sporting in the arctic

Authors: Christian Buschmann Ekeland

Addresses: Department of Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, UIT, The Arctic University of Norway, 9037 Tromsø, Norway

Abstract: The emotion of interest creates an urge to explore an external world, to become involved and to learn. But as our relationships to objects of interest mature, they also become more important to the self. So is it that we develop lifelong pursuits of academic writing, music or kiting, as ways of finding meaningful happiness. This article explores the pivotal role interest has in the formation of new knowledge; what interest feels like, the agency it has and how it is performed. Expansions are made to contemporary interest theory by underlining the importance of spatiality and places. Furthermore, as an analytic autoethnography, it explores how interest creates powerful place attachment processes and feelings of belonging, which also influences representation. The latter is recognised here by being both analytic and evocative in order to represent interest more nuanced.

Keywords: analytical autoethnography; emotion of interest; spatiality; belonging; extreme sports; Arctic; place attachment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2016.081744

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2016 Vol.5 No.3/4, pp.276 - 298

Received: 04 Mar 2015
Accepted: 09 Apr 2016
Published online: 24 Jan 2017 *

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