Negotiating Constraints to Recreation in Everglades National Park Among Underserved South Florida Residents

Everglades National Park (EVER) is located within fifty miles of Miami, Florida. Miami-Dade County is home to approximately 2.7 million people with 71.6 percent of the population identifying as Hispanic or Latino. Despite proximity to this diverse urban area, the demographics of EVER’s visitors largely do not represent the surrounding community. Conceptual frameworks of constraints can facilitate understanding of low park visitation among traditionally underserved communities; however, they have been criticized for being relatively superficial due to their predominantly quantitative modeling approaches. Through semistructured interviews with underserved residents of South Florida, this research sought to understand constraints and constraint negotiation to visiting EVER. Participants identified several individual, interpersonal, contextual, and systemic constraints to recreating in EVER. Additionally, participants identified a variety of ways to negotiate these constraints through collective and individual strategies. Implications of this research further our understanding of the role of place, constraints, and negotiation in wilderness and U.S. national park visitation among traditionally underserved communities. This research informs EVER park managers on how to better serve the surrounding South Florida community through identification of detailed, place-based constraints and ways the park could engage in collective negotiation strategies to address them.