http://www.box.net/shared/static/2dggrfqkeh

The Role of Narrative in Ecotourism David Taylor, Department of English University of North Texas Denton, TX

I want to tell you a story ‌.

In other words, emphasis is placed on the skills necessary to understand a place, not be in a place. I’m not underestimating the value of empirical study; it is a part of human understanding. What I am saying is that it isn’t the only way we make a home, maybe not even the most essential.

In making and sharing story, we corroborate it with others in a place, have the verifiable parts verified or rejected, and the individual parts acknowledged.

Spartanburg, SC Lawson’s Fork River

Can stories save a river?

Over that year, I inhabited Lawson’s Fork, the way we can live in a place— aware, knowledgeable, caring, and vocal.

What was needed now was community involvement, protection, and preservation.

Five launch sites along 4.7 miles of navigable river

Glendale Mills on Lawson’s Fork

They are in the best sense of that word “active” and they are still telling their story along the Lawson’s Fork.

Closing Thoughts Rarely is story discussed as a vital part of the whole community‌.

By “arts,” I do not mean the products of those cloistered few creating art only for the educated and privileged other few; I mean those works which seek to express a community story in whatever medium they chose. I mean those arts which also appreciate that a community’s “beliefs and practices” deserve the greatest input possible so to continue the creative evolution of each place’s unique story.

However, the heart of a place is the common story we’re all a part of; this story can tell us about the importance of our environment to our lives; the significance and reality of our past with it; what the environment needs for its health; and what our multiple imaginations are for this connection between place and home.