Nature sports: ontology, embodied being, politics

Abstract

In nature sports athletes interact with the surfaces, textures and fluids of physical geographical features as well as the dynamic forces that create them. These interactions have largely been ignored by social constructionist thinking in the social sciences; social constructionism renders the natural environment inert, passive, and malleable for human meaning and use. In this article I argue that the elements of natural environments produce affects and sensations that inscribe themselves on, and transform and produce, bodies. Two questions arise from this argument. Firstly, what is the ontology of nature sports within Western philosophy that separates nature from culture as a primary divide in the organization of knowledge? Secondly, are theorists of nature sports correct in their view that participants are fostering a new ethic of care for the natural environment and facilitating a new environmental politics? Here I draw on surfing, an archetypal nature sport, to address both questions.