Phenomenological insights on motherhood and aquatic embodiment

This chapter utilizes sociological phenomenology to investigate intercorporeality, intersubjectivity, and sensoriality in leisure swimming, as experienced by mothers with their pre-school-aged children. Data from two research studies highlighted salient elements of such experiences, including a shift in women's intentionality from the self to their children, and increased focus upon their children's subtle embodied cues. The ability to “read” such cues was assumed by participants to reside in an innate maternal “instinct,” related to the management of perceived risks in the pool and changing-room spaces, including problematic traces of the passage of other bodies. Moreover, the maternal experience was replete with emotion work and the management of young children's embodied behavior. Mothers were cognizant of the tacit etiquette of the pool, including respect for the integrity of the auditory and somatic space of others. Our insights offer an example of the value of a sociological and feminist phenomenological theoretical framework in understanding mothers’ embodied experiences of leisure-swimming.