Ronan FOLEY, Maynooth University, Ireland
During the past two years of COVID-19 spatial restrictions, many people have been forced to turn to nearby nature as a space for health and wellbeing. Operating as both a space of health care maintenance and respite, citizen’s use of green and blue spaces expanded vastly in that time (Foley and Kistemann, 2015; Foley et al, 2019). This paper presents results from ongoing research with swimmer’s in Ireland on how outdoor swimming has been shaped by the COVID19 pandemic (Foley, 2017). The results are based on ongoing (auto)ethnographic research as well as a number of swim-along interviews in coastal and inland swimming spaces (Britton and Foley, 2021). The presentation will initially identify some learning for methodologies based on the innovative in-aqua research approach. More significantly, the specific impact of COVID-19 to boost the number of people swimming outdoors has given rise to new swimming communities, longer swimming engagements and identifiable benefits for both physical and mental health and wellbeing. These include physical fitness, stress-reduction and the evrryday role of swimming as a respite practice. In addition, some interesting learning in relation to the management of public swimming location including rocks, beaches, lakes and rivers, were also identified, all of which may help in cementing the ongoing importance of outdoor swimming spaces as underestimated health assets (Bell et al., 2018).
Mots clés : Swimming|Blue Space|Wellbeing|mental health|Ireland
A103087RF