Abstract

SPINK, Mary Jane P.; ARAGAKI, Sérgio Seiji  and  ALVES, Marina Pigozzi. Sensation seeking in outdoor pursuits: similarities and differences in discourses on radical sports and adventure tourism. Psicol. Reflex. Crit. [online]. 2005, vol.18, n.1, pp. 26-38. ISSN 0102-7972.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79722005000100005.

This article is a contribution to the understanding of risk-adventure as the set of practices that recuperate the positive dimension of risk. Based on a review of the literature and on the theoretical approach of Constructionist Discursive Psychology, it proposes a model for the analysis of the dimensions of risk adventure present in adventure tourism and radical sports: risk/danger, adrenaline, adventure, training, use of equipments and relationship to nature. The data, derived from the site of a tourism agency that specialized in adventure tourism and an interview with a paraglide practitioner, was analyzed using "trees of association of ideas" and "dialogical maps". All the elements of the model were present in both modalities of risk-adventure. However, adventure tourism was characterized by the delegation of responsibility to specialists, whilst the training/experience dimension made itself more present in radical sports, along with greater emphasis on individual responsibility in the control of risks.

Keywords : Risk-adventure; risk language; making sense; adventure tourism; radical sports.