Immersed: Finding the ocean in human-ocean health and wellbeing

Keywords: Swimming, ecofeminism, human-ocean health, oceans, sport
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 12

Abstract

Research about human-ocean health and wellbeing remains focused on the benefits of proximity to coasts and oceans. Being on, near or in seas and oceans is understood as beneficial for human physical, mental, and social health and wellbeing. However, there are two key areas that are less likely to be considered are: how human encounters can be beneficial for multispecies coastal and ocean ecologies; and the risks and dangers coasts and oceans pose. That is, human-ocean health continues to focus on only on side of the benefits of these interactions, and in this way remain anthropocentric and land-based in their thinking.

For example, while ‘wild swimmers’ preach the value of swimming in ‘pristine’ environments, they fail to consider how their swimming disturbs ecologies and leaves traces of micro plastics. At the same time, multidisciplinary health and wellbeing scholars who advocate for more time spent near coasts often present romanticised, idealised versions of these ecologies. They leave aside risks such as drowning and exposure to pollution, at the same time failing to account for the implicit whiteness and Western ontologies that underpin their assumptions.

This discussion draws on recent fieldwork in Australia to explore the importance of thinking about human-ocean health and wellbeing in terms of multispecies and cultural encounters, vulnerabilities and ecologies. In particular, it will challenge romanticised notions of encounters by using ocean sports (ocean swimming and surfing) as examples of the complexity of human relationships to oceans in our everyday recreational and physically active lives.