Exploring the role of embodiment in the production and experience of wild atmospheres in nature

Abstract

Embodied and emotional experiences are heightened in encounters with nature, especially in blue spaces. Thus, drawing on the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, we analyse the role of the body in the production and experience of wild atmospheres through the practice of wild swimming in natural blue spaces. Using an interpretive approach involving interviews and ethnographic observations with forty-six wild swimmers, our analysis foregrounds embodiment and illuminates the central role of the body in the relational production and experience of atmospheres in nature. In so doing, we extend current understandings of embodiment by advancing a granular account of the emergence of ‘wild swimming atmospheres’ produced and experienced haptically and somatically through intimate and personal connections and entanglements between human bodies and natural surroundings. The paper concludes with suggestions for exploring embodied haptic and somatic experiences in other consumption contexts within natural settings.