Abstract
Outdoor swimming is not neutral—it carries embedded values, reinforcing or challenging dominant social norms. Amongst Norwegian cold-water bathers in the arctic those values include a desire for diversity of practitioners, inclusive access to clean environmentally healthy bathing spaces, and being outdoors as a health enabling practice. In a cultural context that values voluntary contributions for local grassroots associations, how do non-association communities of ice-bathers find recognition for their actions and cultivate alternative means to link personal notions of wellbeing with collective environmental responsibility. From 12 months between 2024 and 2025, I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Nordland County, Norway, including several hundred hours bathing, plunging, dipping, and swimming outdoors. Through weekly baths in the sea with mainly white, middle-aged or pensioner-aged women, it has become clear that they attempt to cultivate personal and collective forms of wellbeing through this practice, establishing relationships to water and each other by submerging themselves in the frigid salty waters of the Norwegian sea. However, it is in the coldest water and darkest winter months where cultural notions of outdoor recreation and connection to bathing places are expressed most vividly in imaginaries of what it means to be a “rough” or “hardy” Norwegian woman. Understanding what cold-water and ice-bathing practices are doing for these women offers insights into a local politics of the sensible, sustainability practices, and human-environment relations.
Presenters
Sean HeathMSCA Postdorctoral Fellow, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven, Belgium
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sporting Cultures and Identities
KEYWORDS
Wellbeing, Politics of the Senses, Water Stewardship
