Friluftsliv as Slow and Peak Experiences in the Transmodern Society

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to look at friluftsliv through the glasses of the experience society and some of the experience theory adapted from the experience economy. Identifying the basic experiences, slow, flow and peak experiences as central to friluftsliv and identifying that today’s society is constituted by several generations differing in their values and world views, this paper proposes a background to the contemporary development of friluftsliv into a sportified “fast and furious” post-modern form of friluftsliv. In the contemporary “nanosecond culture” the need of genuine friluftsliv in the sense of Nansen, as a philosophical approach to interconnect with our original home, nature, seems to be needed more then ever, and is here suggested in the form of slow experiences through friluftsliv. The contemporary shift towards a Transmodern society with radically different values compared to the modern and postmodern society, opens the possibility that friluftsliv could be a Transmodern way to reconnect with nature and provide basic experiences of interconnectedness with a more-than-human world. Therefore friluftsliv could be a means to foster a Generation G for the Transmodern society.