Reclaiming the Outdoors Through Story
For many people, the outdoors is marketed as a universal refuge — a place where “everyone” can find peace, adventure, and belonging. But in practice, access to nature is shaped by history, culture, and uneven systems of opportunity. Over the past year, I explored a central question: What myths have shaped our understanding of the outdoors as a “white space,” and how might oral storytelling help reshape that narrative?
This work began as a design-research inquiry but quickly became something more intimate — a collective act of remembering. I interviewed Black individuals across generations, asking them not just about the outdoors, but around it: childhood memories, safety lessons, family rituals, the places they felt welcome, and the places they didn’t.
Their stories revealed a striking pattern: nature isn’t neutral. It is inherited, taught, and sometimes withheld.
Myths That Shape Experience
Across the interviews, several dominant myths surfaced again and again:
“Black people don’t do the outdoors.”
“Hiking is a white thing.”
“Camping isn’t for us.”
These myths didn’t emerge out of nowhere. They’re shaped by a long history of segregation, uneven access to public land, and generational memories of unsafe rural spaces. When outdoor culture is represented primarily through white bodies, brands, and narratives, it reinforces who is seen as naturally belonging there — and who is not.
But stories complicate these myths. Participants shared memories of fishing with grandparents, playing in creeks, gardening, visiting national parks, exploring backyards. The outdoors was woven through their histories — just not always reflected back to them in mainstream culture.
The Cost of Access
What we often call “nature access” is actually made up of resources many people don’t have equal access to:
time off
transportation
proximity to parks and trails
knowledge of where to go
familiarity with gear
family support
a sense of safety
When these barriers stack, the outdoors feels less like an open invitation and more like a gated world.
Why Oral Storytelling Matters
One of the most transformative parts of this research was simply listening. Participants’ voices filled the gaps that data couldn’t: stories about their mothers telling them to stay close to home, unspoken rules about safety, the warmth of exploring nature with cousins, or the fear of being “out of place” on certain trails.
Oral storytelling creates an emotional bridge between past and present. It reveals how lived experience shapes our relationship to land — and how healing or repair can begin.
In a time when the outdoors is often commercialized or aestheticized, these stories function as a counter-archive. They make visible what has been overlooked.
Designing for Belonging
As designers, we often focus on solutions — programs, interventions, systems. But belonging starts with visibility. Participants were clear about what would make the outdoors more accessible and inviting:
seeing more Black people in outdoor marketing
programs targeted at Black youth
education and guided outdoor experiences
elected leaders who prioritize the environment
safe spaces to explore without judgment
These are not radical requests. They are reminders that design is always relational. Access is emotional. Safety is systemic. Representation is strategic.
A Future Rooted in Story
This work reinforced something I now see as a foundational truth in design: before we design experiences, we have to understand the stories that shape them. Stories reveal fear, hope, memory, and aspiration. They surface the forces — cultural, political, historical — that determine what feels possible.
Reclaiming the outdoors isn’t just about new programs or more inclusive marketing. It’s about honoring histories, dismantling myths, and creating pathways for all people to redefine their relationship to land.
And it starts, always, with listening.
