LIVING THE ANCIENT VOLCANO: A HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF TOURIST MEANING-MAKING AND STEWARDSHIP AT NGLANGGERAN, INDONESIA

Nglanggeran Ancient Volcano is widely discussed as a leading example of community-based tourism (CBT) and inter-organizational collaboration in Indonesia, yet less is known about how visitors live through the geoheritage encounter and translate it into meanings and ethical orientations. This paper addresses that gap through a hermeneutic phenomenological study of tourists’ lived experiences during the Nglanggeran hike and on-site dwelling. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = XX) and experiential field notes, the analysis identifies essential meaning structures that shape visitor experience beyond service-quality metrics: (1) embodied negotiation with terrain, effort, and perceived risk; (2) summit horizon-opening moments that trigger deep-time imagination and reflective humility; (3) micro-communities of care and co-presence along the trail; and (4) emergent stewardship dispositions shaped by community rules, interpretive cues, and perceived legitimacy of local governance. The discussion connects these meaning structures to CBT empowerment and resilience (Scheyvens, 1999; Okazaki, 2008; Ruiz-Ballesteros, 2011; Jackson, Lee, & Park, 2025), interpretation as a management tool (Orams, 1996; Moscardo, 2014; Nowacki, 2021), and co-creation risks in heritage contexts (Campos, Mendes, & Oom do Valle, 2018; Park & Lee, 2025). We argue that lived experience functions as a mediating mechanism linking geoheritage encounter to sustainable behavior, offering practical implications for interpretive design, crowding management, and community-led governance in geoheritage destinations.