Foley, Ronan
(2017)
Swimming as an accretive practice in healthy blue space.
Emotion, Space and Society, 22.
pp. 43-51.
ISSN 1755-4586
Abstract
Cultural geographers are increasingly interested in research on water and water-based practices as sites of study. Parallel literatures on therapeutic landscapes, especially emergent work on healthy blue space, have also begun to explore emotional geographies. This paper is an empirical study of outdoor swimming
in Ireland with a specific focus on health and wellbeing. A key aim is to uncover evidence on how specific blue places and practices enable health. The idea of a continuum is utilised to link theory and practice and connect rather than divide affect, feeling and emotion. This is articulated through a set of embodied
experiential practices that proposed swimming as a process of therapeutic accretion. Both personal and
shared histories are used to identify the importance of both swimming practices and places to show how therapeutic accretions emerge to build healthy resilience. Additional insights suggest aspects of
embodied health that are enhanced by outdoor swimming, especially in relation to bodies perceived to be inactive due to age, illness or disability. While the risks are not ignored, the need to better value
outdoor swimming in cooler climates for public health is proposed, suggesting new directions for research on outdoor swimming to simultaneously capture active and passive embodied and emotional
experiences within blue space.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Swimming; Blue-space; Therapeutic accretion; Affect; Ireland; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
8938 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2016.12.001 |
| Depositing User: |
Dr. Ronan Foley
|
| Date Deposited: |
27 Oct 2017 11:05 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Emotion, Space and Society |
| Publisher: |
Elsevier |
| Refereed: |
No |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
Repository Staff Only(login required)
 |
Item control page |
Downloads per month over past year
Origin of downloads
Altmetric
Altmetric