The Social World of Outdoor Swimming: Cultural Practices, Shared Meanings, and Bodily Encounters

Abstract

This article examines the particular relations and entanglements of practices, bodies, and water in the social world of outdoor swimming. Using ethnographic data to describe how the relations, interactions, and meaning-making unfold and happen before, during, and after a swim, we can consider the ways the social world of outdoor swimming is ordered, the ways in which participants produce and are enrolled into that social order and the sense of belonging and connection that this enables. This article uses this case to highlight how we need to consider a sociology of and in water; to consider the ways interactions and meaning-making occur in and around bluespace; and to do this in ways that disrupts and expands our understanding of social worlds and life.