Heritage as symbolic capital in outdoor apparel marketing: a multimodal critical discourse analysis

Abstract

This paper examines how two contemporary outdoor clothing brands use the legacies of polar explorers Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen as symbolic capital. Using comparative multimodal critical discourse analysis, the study evaluates website content, imagery and promotional materials to identify four interconnected mechanisms that both companies utilise, albeit in markedly different ways: (1) the mythologisation of the ‘Heroic’ Age of polar exploration; (2) the mobilisation of technical expertise and moral authority; (3) the restoration of the ‘Heroic’ Age imaginary; and (4) the formation of a ‘Heroic’ ecosystem. While Shackleton draws on its namesake’s experiences to position the outdoors as a site of disciplined self-overcoming and aspirational self-transformation, Amundsen constructs a more naturalised lifestyle imaginary, emphasising continuity, authenticity and cultural belonging through its association with exploration and Nordic heritage. In both cases, however, exploration history operates as a technology of legitimation, producing a luxury-heroism paradox where consumers perform a proximity to extreme hardship through risk-managed luxury. It also preserves the outdoors as an exclusive site of white masculine self-actualisation and colonial nostalgia. Overall, the findings advance critical understandings of how heritage can be repurposed into symbolic capital, granting legitimacy to a ritualised enactment of heroism that remains safely wedded to premium comfort.