The experiential gaze and the field station experience

Practicing place-based observation greatly enhances ecologists’ ability to see patterns and processes. Typically, we emphasize scientific discovery and individual student training as the values of field experience to society. The Experiential Gaze is a conceptual way of seeing cultivated at field stations by direct, attentive, sustained and social experience of ecosystems. I posit effective field stations also facilitate potentially life-altering self-discovery, bonding and communitas. I explore the roles of power, identity and authenticity in the liminal space of the field station and ask: does employing the Experiential Gaze result in cultivation of science literacy, meaningful stewardship and human well being?