Presentation short abstract

We immerse into experiences of river swimmers and explore embodied entanglements between human and ecological wellbeing. We weave together stories from Rivers Thames, Derwent & Wharfe, exploring the implications of swimming for swimmers’ wellbeing and the watery worlds they immerse themselves in.

Presentation long abstract

We discuss ongoing projects that immerse into the experiences of river swimmers and explore embodied entanglements between human and ecological wellbeing. We weave together stories from the Rivers Thames, Derwent and Wharfe, gathered through multi-sensory, place-based methodologies such as swim-along and riverbank interviews. In so doing, we respond to geographer Hannah Pitt’s (2018) call to consider a ‘wider palette of water experiences’, centring watery spaces that are often not glitteringly blue, but earthy green, rusty red and cloudy brown. Indeed, these rivers are always murky, contradictory in their ability to draw human and more-than-human beings into relations where both wellbeing and sickness ebb and flow. The growth in outdoor swimming in the UK has been matched by growing threats to the nation’s rivers. Reports continually tell us of the fragile state of the nation’s freshwater ecosystems, suffocated by agricultural run-off, sickened by sewage, and contaminated with forever chemicals. Outdoor swimming can therefore be both restorative and healing, polluted and risky. We delve into this paradox, asking whether the relations that emerge through outdoor swimming are rejuvenating and if so, for whom? Through investigating these riverine relations, we can critically examine the potential of the practice to shift human perspectives of multispecies watery worlds. As Rebecca Olive (2022) powerfully captures, ‘Swimming is not conceptual or metaphorical – it is a set of relations to ourselves and to what else is there.’ We centre these relations, exploring their implications for the wellbeing of swimmers and the watery worlds they immerse themselves in.