Engaging people in sustainability and climate adaptation practices is contingent on understanding we are part of the ecologies we live in: our health and wellbeing is intertwined. In this presentation, I will give an overview of Moving Oceans, which is a research project about the role of sport, physical activities and leisure in how people come to care for coasts and oceans. It explores the everyday individual and community relationships we develop through the immersion and encounters we have through swimming and surfing. Using three case studies – sharks, plastics, localism – this project aims to understand how and why ocean lifestyle sports put us in the way of “chastening experiences” (Plumwood, 2012) and encounters that can impact our worldviews and consumption practices towards a more ethical relationship to coasts and oceans.
Rebecca Olive joined the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences in 2017. Her work about lifestyle and nature sports contributes to critical cultural, social and historical teaching and research relating to sport, physical cultures, bodies, and health. Rebecca publishes in journals and books across Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Sport Sociology, and Sport History, and has co-edited a book with Holly Thorpe, Women in Action Sport Cultures: Identity, Politics and Experience (2016). In 2019, she was awarded a DECRA for her 'blue health' project, 'Understanding ecological sensibilities in recreational lifestyle sports', which will use surfing and ocean swimming to explore intersections in the health of humans and oceans.