Continuing to Ask Relevant Questions: Change, Adaptability, and Self-Reflection in Interpretation

Abstract

The practice of interpretation involves a broad diversity of decisions. What should we interpret? How shall we interpret it? For whom? Research on interpretation requires making similar decisions. What shall we study? How shall we study it? From whom do we collect data? For whom do we draw conclusions? What questions are we trying to answer? The three research articles in this issue highlight some of these critical decisions and reinforce the importance of continuing to ask relevant questions. First, Merson and colleagues grapple with decisions associated with competing accountabilities of interpreters in National Parks. In their study, the National Park Service’s emphasis on audience-centered experiences (ACE) sometimes conflicted with the desires of visitors for more traditional interpretive techniques. Interpreters found it important to be nimble and flexible in the moment, shifting their approaches to align with visitors’ wishes and expectations. Not all visitors wanted to engage actively in self-reflection or dialogic questions. The authors emphasize the importance of managers enabling discretion for interpreters in the field to make their own decisions about the appropriate place on the spectrum between traditional thematic and storytelling approaches and ACE techniques for each visitor group. Szczesny and colleagues discuss how tourism infrastructure in National Parks has transformed from serving to support visitors’ experiences to becoming important top-ics of park interpretation. Old hotels, for example, such as Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn, the Grand Canyon’s Hopi House Lodge and Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel, have