Theorising Deep and Shallow Diversity: Critiquing The North Face’s Allyship in the Outdoors program

Witte, Alexandra; Stanley, Phiona

Abstract

Recreational access to the outdoors is good for human bodyminds (Natural England, 2016a, 2016b). But for many reasons —conceptually divisible into tangible and intangible constraints (Urry, 2007)— some people do not regularly access outdoors spaces. This includes some: people with physical/mental ill health; minority ethnic communities; teenagers; elderly people; and people living in deprived areas (Holland, 2021; Outdoors for All, 2015). Queer folks and fat folks are also under-represented (Stanley, 2020). We therefore ask: how do such exclusions occur? And: what interventions might make outdoor access more equitable?
By way of conceptual lens, we examine a recent intervention and the media/online backlash surrounding it: The North Face’s (UK)’s Allyship in the Outdoors program (2024). This offered a 20% discount, promising to “help you understand the challenges that people of colour face when accessing the outdoors” and “help you be a better ally”. (Importantly, the addressed, normative “you” is taken as White).

In critiquing the program, we propose a theoretical model of deep and shallow diversity, mapped onto Schein’s (1985) organizational culture model. This allows for conceptualisation of diversity at three levels: artefact/behavioural; espoused values; and assumptive paradigms. For example, whereas diversity in media representation is an important artefact/behavioural level action, this does not challenge deeply held dominant-culture ways of being/doing in the outdoors. We therefore examine diverse ways of relating to the natural world (Witte, 2020), demonstrating the cultural particularly of the assumptive paradigm underpinning Allyship in the Outdoors and its role in perpetuating an ongoing colonisation of the consciousness.

Citation

Witte, A., & Stanley, P. (2025, August). Theorising Deep and Shallow Diversity: Critiquing The North Face’s Allyship in the Outdoors program. Presented at Royal Geographical Society International Conference, Birmingham, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: Royal Geographical Society International Conference
• Start Date: Aug 26, 2025
• End Date: Aug 29, 2025
• Acceptance Date: Mar 7, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 21, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4182385