A Year of Immersion into the River Thames: Diving into the seasonal social worlds of river swimming

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The proposed PhD fieldwork will utilise qualitative methods that progressively dive deeper into swimmers' social worlds from swim-along participant observation to interviews and GoPro video diaries. GoPro diaries, pioneered by Dr Bates and Dr Moles, are a particularly novel tool for accessing the multisensory atmospheres of swimming. Complemented by participant observation and semi-structured interviews, the proposed PhD interweaves methods to conduct a spatial-temporal journey, (re)connecting and (re)immersing with Thames swimmers over a one-year cycle. Working closely with their supervsiors, ethical considerations will be key and training and preparation for ethical clearance will be built in from the start. Researcher safety will draw on established procedures for ethnographic fieldwork, particular attention will be paid to issues connected to walking and 'immersive' methods in wild spaces, drawing on the expertise and support of the proposed supervsiors and established research safety procedures and protocols associated with similar work that has been conducted in SOCSI.