Bodies, with Charlotte Bates

Episode Transcript
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Alexis Hieu Truong (00:07):
Hi, and welcome back to Uncommon Sense
from The Sociological Review.
I'm Alexis Hieu Truong, inOttawa, Canada.

Rosie Hancock (00:15):
And I'm Rosie Hancock, in Sydney, Australia.
As ever, we're all about seeingour world afresh through the
eyes of sociologists, andshowing that you really don't
have to be a sociologist tothink like one.

Each month, we take a theme that seems
straightforward and take asideways look at it. Today,
"bodies" – start talking aboutthat and you end up going pretty
far pretty fast, into questionsof law and ethics, geography and
space, property and power, art,representation. And then there's
that use of the word "body" forthings like "body politic", or a

(00:50):
"body of work", or "bodies ofwater", which we'll be talking
about in a moment, actually.

That's so interesting, Alexis, because
suddenly, we're talking aboutbodies and it's not humans. I
thought only humans had bodies,or maybe animals ... What
actually are the limits of abody? I have to say, when I
first heard that we wererecording on bodies, I thought
about the fact that, as I'vementioned before, I've recently
had a child. And I've reallygrappled with this idea that, if

(01:19):
you give birth, you carry yourchild within and then without
you – in both senses of thatword. There's sort of part of
your body, but existing outsideof it, too, as well. It's very
bizarre.

Yeah, the limits of the body are something
that I've thought about a lotover the years. Not necessarily
because of rising talk oftranshumanism – people seeking
immortality and so on – butsimply because I'm diabetic and,
since 2018, have an insulin pumpand a glucose sensor that are
plugged into me like some kindof cyborg. And, I've gone

(01:57):
through different stages ofseeing it as equipment that's
distinct from me, or somethingthat's really become a part of
me, given that it's giving mevital information and taking
actually decisions about themedicine it's giving me – the
insulin it's giving me – so, Iget, like, this question of,
like, this body and it'stechno-extensions, like, is it

(02:17):
mine or is it me? And I mean,that really speaks to the
question of whether we have orwe are bodies too, right?

Yeah, well, I mean, all kinds of thinkers have
tried to define and discuss thebody and its limits. You could
[look] way back to Descartes onthe mind-body split, Foucault on
discipline, Sylvia Federici onthe body and capitalism, Donna
Haraway's cyborg manifesto, bellhooks' critique of the video for

(02:46):
Beyoncé's Lemonade ... I couldkind of keep rattling people
off, but I won't.

Indeed. And actually, today we're talking to
a sociologist whose work centreson the body. She's researched
swimming bodies, unwell bodies,walking bodies, and more. She's
Charlotte Bates, based atCardiff University in Wales. Hi,
Charlotte.

Charlotte Bates (03:06):
Hi, it's really lovely to be here with you.

Hi, Charlotte.
And I also have to say thanks somuch for bearing with us
because, very aptly for theepisode on bodies, we have had
to postpone recording thisepisode twice, because of
illness. And I mean, we're gonnago on and talk about illness
later on in the episode. Butbefore we get there, I actually
wanted to start out by pointingout that you started in

(03:31):
philosophy, and then I alsostarted in philosophy, before we
both turned to sociology lateron – and I really liked that
commonality that we have in ourkind of academic background. And
I'm curious, what did you noticeabout how those two different
fields – sociology andphilosophy – think about the
body? And what was it thatcaught your imagination?

Yeah, that's a really nice connection, Rosie.
And there's a line that I keptencountering in philosophy and
sociology and in literature,too, that we don't notice our
bodies until they break. And Ifound this really interesting,
but also quite puzzling. Becausethroughout my own life, I've had
quite an acute awareness of mybody and its limitations. The
philosopher Havi Carel describesthis as "bodily doubt". And that

(04:15):
really, really resonated withme. I've never taken my body for
granted in the way that somepeople supposedly do. But
everyday embodied experiences –characterised by a sense of
bodily certainty in philosophyand in sociology – and things
like illness really disrupt it.

Can you elaborate a bit on that word –
embodiment? I mean, typically,if you say someone embodies
something, it often means thatthey kind of carry or capture
the essence of something. And inmy own work on cosplay – aka
costume play – in Tokyo, I'veseen people dress up to embody
not just different characters,but also embody ideas of

(04:54):
something like a train company,or a country, or a convenience
store – something that's knownas gijinka. But this might be
pretty far from the way thatwe're using the term
"embodiment" here, or insociology, right? Could you
explain that a bit for us?

It's a little bit different, but it's not all
that far away. Because you'retalking about dressing up your
body, aren't you? And these arethings that we do to our body to
embody personas or characters,or to kind of sculpt ourselves
in different ways. But the word"embodiment" is a really long
word that just recognises theimportance of the body. So,

(05:32):
we're all embodied, and like thebody this often gets forgotten.
But it invites us, I think, tothink and feel with our bodies,
to consider how we do things toour bodies, like dress them up
or do cosmetic surgery. But italso invites us to think about
how we can do things with ourbodies, like play different
sports. But also how our bodiesdo things to us – how they act

(05:55):
back on us – like when we becomeill, or when we give birth.

You're right.
It's so interesting that youmentioned when you give birth.
Like we talked about in theintro, I've just had a child,
and this sense that, like, yourbody is doing something to you,
that you've completely ... like,the act of becoming pregnant and
carrying a child is just suchthis strange experience of
completely losing control overyour own body. Yeah, so I find
it really interesting that youbring that up. And I mean,

(06:24):
there's this flawed distinctionbetween the mind versus the
body. And I kind of want to talkabout that and see whether,
like, whether you think thatit's not just a distinction, but
also a hierarchy – like "mindover matter" and this idea that
the mind is "superior" to thebody, and that matters of the

(06:44):
body are somehow "base"? So, Istudied religion, and I think
that, certainly in Christianity,that idea that the spirit is
exalted in the body is, youknow, something, yeah, base – is
really strong in some kind ofhistoric Christian traditions.
And as an academic, I know I'vebeen told more than once that I
live the "life of the mind". AndI'm not sure anyone would ever

(07:08):
say you live the "life of thebody", right?

Yeah, it's just so ingrained in our society
through Western philosophy,through religion, you know – you
mentioned the Cartesianmind-body divide. When we talk
about the senses, there is akind of "order" of the senses –
even that sight is better thanother senses, which just isn't
true. But it's just there, inall the ways we think.

I wonder, can you tell us more about how
sociologists in particularstarted thinking about the body
towards the end of the lastcentury? What was the kind of
turn or what were they reactingto at that moment?

Yes, so there was a kind of turn or rise of
the body in the late 20thcentury, which was really
informed by some of thetheoretical work that Rosie
mentioned in the introduction tothis podcast. But, I think, that
was the kind of thatbreakthrough moment that we've
been talking about a little bit,where people recognised that
bodies aren't simply biologicaland that this hierarchy maybe

(08:11):
isn't right. So, we're notalways white, we're not always
male, we're not alwaysheterosexual, we're not always
able. And sociologists began toexplore these more diverse
bodies through the lenses ofgender, class, race, sexuality,
age, and disability. And a lotof this work began to really
focus on how people live, andtheir lived, embodied and felt

(08:33):
experiences.

Actually, you and Rosie both talked about,
like, pregnancy, for example –like, the body doing something
to us, right? And the cosplaykind of link that I made earlier
was quite different, in thesense that we're doing something
to the body, like costuming itor changing it in some way. And
I feel a bit like that withinsulin, right? So, my body

(08:55):
can't go on without insulin, soI'm doing something and giving
it a medication, right? So, canyou elaborate a bit more on kind
of the things that the body doesto us? Or are there things that
we do to the body?

Yeah, I think that's a really important
distinction within the sociologyof the body. There are people
that think about what we do toour bodies, which is one set of
questions – so, you know, Italked earlier or mentioned
cosmetic surgery. But there'salso the way our bodies do
things to us. So, we can thinkabout the body as a commodity,
as something that we can dressup and shape and make pretty in

(09:30):
ways that we want to. But we canalso think about the power that
our bodies have over us tocontrol our lives in different
way, to make demands on us know,to need insulin. And I think
those two are very different.

I mean, it's interesting, I guess, you could
go that step further and talkabout the people that are trying
to transcend the "confines" ofthe body as well. So,
transhumanism, which is, youknow ... let's actually not talk
about them because those guysget enough attention. So, we've

(10:02):
just been, you know, touching alittle bit on Alexis and
diabetes, and some of yourearlier work was on illness, and
that became your book, VitalBodies. Could you tell me a bit
more about your project? And,like, your methods? What you
wanted to explore? So, I thinkyou were following ... was it 12
people with various illnessesfor a year? Am I on the right

(10:23):
track here?

Yeah, that's right. And it's really a story
about 12 people just livingtheir everyday lives. But these
people were all living with along-term condition, so, things
like arthritis, asthma,diabetes, depression, chronic
pain. And working with them overthe course of this year, and
kind of dipping in and out oftheir lives, and sharing moments

(10:46):
that you don't normally get tosee with them – through journals
and diaries and video diaries,as well as just talking to them
– I kind of learned a lot abouthow the routines and the rhythms
of everyday life, and thesignificance of the things we
usually just take for grantedare so disrupted. So, whether
it's just, you know, a simplehaving a cup of coffee in the

(11:08):
morning, or how much time youwere able to sleep that night –
these things become really,really significant. And it kind
of highlighted for me how it'sreally hard to live a modern
life with illness, and just howillness disrupts our bodies and
our lives in different ways.

That's interesting, because so often
when we talk about illness we'retalking about older age or the
end of life, yeah? And thatseems to be a really different
thing from where you went inthis project.

Yeah, that was part of my frustration with a
lot of what I was reading. Itwas that it was about older
people who you kind of expect,your maybe going to get ill and
very lucky if you grow old. Orit was about really particular
kind of medical kind of ways ofthinking about illness. So, only
people with depression or onlypeople with diabetes. So, what I

(11:58):
wanted to do was kind of cutthrough some of those ways in
which we divide our experiences,and think about how people, so
many people – and it's so hiddenand so unspoken – but so many
people do just live their liveswith illness. And so, a lot of
the people that I was workingwith were in their 20s or 30s,

(12:20):
or some of them were in their40s. Some of them had been
looking for a diagnosis for along time, and some of them had
been diagnosed as children. So,this was really a part of
living. If you've grown up withsomething, or if you're in your
20s and you're living your lifewith an illness, I think, it can
be dark and it can bedepressing, and there can be

(12:40):
some really bleak black moments.
But a lot of what people sharedwith me was the ways in which
they were caught by kind offinding health and happiness
within their illness, how theywere managing to do things by
listening to their bodies indifferent ways, how they could
take care of themselves in waysthat medicine couldn't kind of

(13:00):
cure them. So, it's, it's ... Imean, Alexis, you could talk
about this too. You know, it'sliving with illness.

Well, sticking with that word,
"illness", for now, in VirginiaWoolf's essay On Being Ill, she
says, "considering how commonillness is, how astonishing when
the lights of health go down,the undiscovered countries that
are then disclosed, it becomesstrange that illness has not
taken its place with love,battle, and jealousy among the

(13:30):
prime themes of literature".
That's from almost a centuryago. But would you agree with
her now in 2022? I mean, whydon't we talk more about
illness?

Such a beautiful quote, and I think
it's really sadly still true. Welive in a society that just
doesn't recognise the body in somany ways, unless it's a thing
that we can do things to. We shyaway from the power it has over
us and over our lives. We likenot to notice our bodies until
they break. There's lots ofattention to the power that we

(14:01):
have over our bodies to shapethem in socially desired ways,
to train them, to run marathons,to climb mountains. But people
just don't think about the powerour bodies have over us. And
it's much easier, I think, tofeel "immortal" if you haven't
been touched by illness.

How do you think the pandemic affects all of
this? The pandemic that, youknow, the COVID-19 ongoing ...

The current pandemic.

The current pandemic, yeah.

I mean, you would think that such a global
crisis would really wakeeveryone up to the vulnerability
of our bodies, but I think I'mnot sure it has and that makes
me really sad. I think it hasdivided people who do feel
vulnerable and people who don't,even more. And I think we've got

(14:52):
to a point now where everyonewants to forget about it and
pretend that it's gone away.

Yeah, I mean, like, going back to that
Virginia Woolf quote, I thinkit's kind of important to add
that she was, you know, anaffluent white upper-class
woman. And, you know, I wonder,you know, the effect that has on
whether people feel vulnerableor not, of course. So, you know,

(15:19):
throwing intersectionality inthere, right? The way that
class, gender, race interact andoverlap to shape a person's
experience, and it kind ofbecomes even more important, I'd
think, to talk about illness andmortality sometimes in that
context. And you can look atthings like the stats on the
disproportionate mortality ratesof women of colour in childbirth

(15:40):
in places like the UK. Accordingto a recent BBC report, I'm
quoting here, "black women aremore than four times more likely
to die in pregnancy orchildbirth than white women,
while women from Asianbackgrounds face almost twice
the risk". And we can thinkabout how campaigns like Black
Lives Matter highlight how airpollution often affects the

(16:03):
poorest communities. I don'tknow. Do you have any
reflections on intersectionalityand how that might approach the
vulnerability of different typesof bodies?

Yeah, I think those are really, really
shocking statistics, Rosie. AndI think it's a little bit
different to what we've beentalking about so far, you know.
In a way, we've been talkingabout illness as an individual
experience, and what that kindof intersectionality and those
kinds of statistics show us isthat bodies ... In a very
different way, you know, you'retalking about kind of social
determinism, rather thanbiological determinism – it's

(16:37):
not because those bodies aremore vulnerable, it's because of
the social structures, the factthat class and money and access
to health services and where youcan live have effects on our
bodies, too.

I think this is a good moment to talk about
ableism. So, that'sdiscrimination and bias towards
so-called "able-bodied" people,against people who are or who
are seen to be so-called"disabled".

Thanks for that, Alexis, because we've actually
got a couple of really greatpieces in The Sociological
Review magazine, written byacademics with experience of
chronic condition themselves –so, Anna Ruddock in 2017 and
Moya Bailey that same year –that point to how ableism is
just so deeply embedded and howit can be hard to shake off its

(17:26):
demands. Charlotte, did you findthat this was a problem for the
people who you worked with inyour book?

Yeah, yeah, I really did. So, ableism is just
so entrenched in our society,isn't it? There's so much
pressure to be productive andresilient and to hide our
vulnerabilities. And AnnaRuddock, whom you just
mentioned, writes beautifullyabout the way we try to render
our illnesses and thereforelarge parts of ourselves
invisible. And sharing thosevulnerabilities can make us feel

(17:56):
even more vulnerable, preciselybecause of ableism. And many of
the people I worked with inVital Bodies kept their
conditions hidden from theiremployers, even to some degree
from their families, theirpartners and their friends.
People, I think, can be reallycruel, they can be ignorant and
oblivious. Rebecca Solnitrecently wrote in The Guardian

(18:16):
that obliviousness is our greatsocial failing. But they can
also be kind. And I do have somenice moments of kindness that
people shared with me too.

And kind of on that, I should actually mention
an essay that our producer Aliceshared with us, it's by Jameisha
Prescod, called "Believing YourPain as Radical Self-Care". In
it, she writes, how she's, andI'm quoting here, "noticed a
commonality in those of usliving with chronic illnesses
... We share a desperate need tobe believed ... It is
quintessential to our survival... To believe yourself, your

(18:50):
body, and that your pain isreal, is a radical act of
self-care." And that's the endof the quote there. But I think
it's an important point, again,speaking to ableism and those
things that really work againsta person being able to live as
they are.

Yeah, and we'll put those in the Episode
Notes. But just going back abit, Charlotte, you mentioned
experiences of kindness. And Iwas just wondering if you could
elaborate or give us a fewexamples of that?

Yeah. So, examples of obliviousness, as
well as maybe examples ofkindness? Really simple things
that can really, really hurt,like leaving the post on the
floor, which becomes a hazardfor a neighbour who can't pick
it up or easily step over itbecause they use a walking
stick. And you know this aboutthem and yet still, you know,

(19:39):
nothing is done. Or honking acar horn at a zebra crossing
when the person crossing theroad is moving "too slowly", but
that is the speed at which theyneed to move. But small acts of
care can be things like helpingthat stranger up from the
pavement if they fall, or justsetting up the coffee machine
for a flatmate in the morning.

That's really interesting, because it's
the example that you have, likesometimes, even if they seem
like small things, they end upfeeling very, like, strong
emotions. Like, they can feel,like, super violent or super
kind, I guess. Anyway, we'vespoken a bit already about how
the unwell body can highlightthings we might otherwise take

(20:22):
for granted. It's essentiallydisruptive. For example, in your
book, you talk about how theunwell body that needs to sleep
can really clash with socialexpectations, with the rhythms
of work and social life. It gotus thinking about how, whether
sleeping or otherwise, you couldsay that the unwell body is
actually, in some way,counter-capitalist; or at least

(20:45):
reveals the absurdity, theunlivability of capitalism. So,
not only can neoliberalism makeyou ill, but illness also
reveals that, well, capitalismhas its pathologies too?

Yeah, I completely agree. And I think
that was really highlighted bythe fact that the people that I
was working with were in their20s and 30s. So, you know, their
friends were going out andpartying all night, they were
working long hours living in thecity. But when you're ill, life
really can quite quicklyunravel. And it really just

(21:18):
brings everything into question,from eating and sleeping to work
and relationships. And I dothink that that kind of also
reveals the absurdity of thespeed that we try to live on,
and our ingrained ideas aboutproductivity and the 24/7
society that we are living in.

Thanks, Charlotte. We'll be back in a
moment to talk more about thevulnerable body when we talk
about your work on what's cometo be called, in some circles at
least, "wild swimming". Butfirst a word from our producer,
Alice.

Alice Bloch (21:54):
Hi, and thanks for listening to Uncommon Sense from
The Sociological Review, whereevery month we invite an expert
guest to join us and mull overan everyday concept in everyday
language that we all think wekind of understand. And over the
course of about 40 minutes, orso, we move along together and
try to see it a bit differently,and yet more sociologically. And

(22:15):
if you're enjoying this episodeon "bodies", why not go back
through our archive and listento episodes on "intimacy" and
"care" among others. You canfind those at the podcast page
at thesociologicalreview.org,where you can also see details
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(22:38):
keep making this podcast foreveryone. Thanks for listening!

Okay, Charlotte, time to turn to your
work on wild swimming, thatyou've done with sociologist
Kate Moles. So, why study wildswimming? And how did you and
Kate set out to study it? Iguess, I'm asking what were your
aims or approaches, yourmethods?

I think it was one of those "accidental"
projects that just happened, andit's really kept me afloat
during the pandemic in so manyways – working with Kate,
swimming, trying something new.
Kate is a swimmer. She has swamall her life. She swims long
distances, and it was somethingthat she had been wanting to
research, I think, for a longtime. It's one of those moments

(23:27):
where your kind of personalpassions cross over into your
work. And then, with my interestin working with video and my
interest in bodies, we justended up doing it together. The
project kind of changed. Itstarted pre-pandemic when we
were going swimming with GoProsand meeting people in the water,
and then it kind of became morerestricted. But actually, that

(23:49):
opened up a lot of things thatwe wouldn't have thought about
before. So, through the kind ofpandemic restrictions and
lockdowns we were workingremotely with a group of about
30 women who live all around theUK, and it gave us a chance to
form friendships and sharethoughts – very occasionally
swim together. But for them, toshare how swimming was keeping

(24:13):
them afloat as well, and what itmeant to them and why they were
doing it.

Charlotte, what were you trying to find out
here? Like, what do you thinkis, like, sociologically
interesting about wild swimming?

I think, you know, we talked earlier about
how you can think about the bodyin different ways – like what we
do to it and what it does to us– and, on the face of it, a
project about swimming is areally kind of sociology of
sport – it's the way in which wego do stuff, we get in the
water, we swim, we trainourselves. But it wasn't really
about that for me at all. It wasabout the women that get in

(24:51):
freezing cold seas in winter,who don't really swim at all,
they just kind of bob in thewater. And it was about those
vulnerabilities and thosefriendships, the ways in which
swimming kind of turns our waysof thinking about the body
around, and about what it can doin very different ways. So, it's

(25:12):
not about swimming 4 kilometres,it's about getting in 4°C degree
water. Those are two verydifferent things. And the kind
of effects that that has onpeople's relationships with
their own bodies as well as withother people.

This term – "wild swimming" – that you use is
curious to me, because, here inAustralia, I'm not sure if we
really use it, or at leastperhaps I'm not cool enough to
know of this, if we do use it ornot. But there is this really
famous club in Bondi, calledIcebergs, and to become an
Iceberg, you have to do acertain number of outdoor – this

(25:51):
is, you know, they've got one ofthese outdoor ocean pools – and
you have to do a certain numberof swims between, I think, April
and October. But here, I mean, Ijust call that "swimming in
winter" rather than "wildswimming". Alexis, is it a term
you guys have in Ottawa? Iimagine, swimming outdoors is
maybe automatically a bit morewild, if by wild we're meaning

(26:13):
cold?

Ah, that's right. I mean, like, during the
summer, I feel like people goswimming in nature. Like, that
definitely happens, like, justfinding a spot and swim in. And
many people will know ... willeither have a cottage or know
someone who knows someone thathas a cottage, and it has a lake
and then they can swim in. I'mnot sure if that's the "wild" –
semi-wild? In nature,definitely. I haven't heard the

(26:39):
expression "wild swimming". But,for example, this brings me to a
memory of my friend saying "oh,I found this place of water, an
then we started swimming, and itwas at night, and we saw a tree
really far, and then we swam..." So, there is this aspect of
wild swimming, for sure, butmaybe not spoken about in the
same words.

I think you've both really hit on something
there. And it is, it's a kind ofcontentious label – "wild
swimming". It's become a reallybig thing in the UK, and I think
there are different culturesaround it in different
countries. And it's somethingthat I'm trying to unpick a
little bit at the moment too.
You know, it's not just aboutconquering nature. And there's
many different ways anddifferent terms – "open-water

(27:25):
swimming" is another one that'sused in the UK. But I'm
interested in what work thatword "wild" is doing. And our
relationships with nature, andhow we think about whether water
is wild or not, or how it feelswild. And how that brings people
in into contact and in touchwith nature in different ways.

Do you think that, like, in a way, wild
swimming has become a bitcommodified, perhaps? Like, I've
heard that Dryrobes are a reallybig thing in certain types of
swimming. Did the swimmers thatyou met have anything to say
about wild swimming as, like, anunderground movement of sorts or

(28:08):
like the cool new thing to bedoing?

Yeah, so, it has had quite a boom in the UK.
And with that have come thingslike Dryrobes, which are kind of
these oversized fleece-linedrobes that help people –
swimmers – get changed and keepwarm after a swin, because it is
pretty cold outside here allyear round. And they kind of

(28:31):
represent a level of economiccommitment. So, it does become
classed. I think, you know, wewere talking before about the
wild, and a lot of the olderswimmers that I've spoken to
don't call it "wild swimming";they just call it swimming,
because that's what we all usedto do. But with this kind of
swell of swimmers, and a lotmore swimming venues opening up

(28:53):
around the UK and people reallygetting into it, there's been a
kind of a bit of a cultureclash, I think. There was a
great incident in Dublin, wheresigns were put up saying "no
Dryrobe swimmers welcome here".
So, it is ... there are thesetensions.

That's really interesting. It's like,
so, it opens up the question of,like, how practices become
commodified, I guess, right?
But, at the same time, theredefinitely seems to be
subversive elements to this –this notion of wild swimming
that you talk about.

Yeah, I think it is subversive in different
ways. It's subversive justbecause it's not in a swimming
pool. We've kind of got to thatpoint where, you know,
everything is sanitised andordered and we go to the
swimming pool to swim. Why can'twe just go and swim in the
river? But actually, we can'tjust go and swim in the river
because it's really polluted.
So, it's kind of challenging ourkind of typical ways of thinking

(29:52):
and acting, and where we dothings and how we do things.
Whether it's swimming outdoorsor getting changed in a public
park and kind of stripping downin a place where you just
normally wouldn't do that.

So, Charlotte, would you say that
it's ... that this wild swimmingis a form of self-care? And why
does it seem that mainly womentend to do it from your
experience?

I think that that word "self-care" is really
problematic, as Bev Skeggshighlighted in the first
podcast, but I do think it is anact of care. Many swimmers find
comfort in the cold water, aswell as in their friendships and
the community that swimmingsustains. People have recounted
to us, through the project, howswimming has helped them through

(30:37):
grief, recovery, mental illness.
I don't think it's somethingthat can be prescribed or
bottled as a cure. But it'sdefinitely kept people afloat
during incredibly hard times.

Thanks, Charlotte. I mean, I really love
the way in which it sounds likea community of women coming
together and like offeringsupport to each other as well.
And I'm also really appreciatingyour use of the word "afloat"
when we're talking aboutswimming. So, Charlotte, we're
gonna stick with that notion ofcomfort and care, actually,

(31:09):
because this is the part of theprogramme where we tend to take
on a word or concept, asupposedly common sense thing
that deserves challenging. Andtoday we are going to talk about
wellness and the wellnessindustry.

So, how would you define "wellness"? And
how has it appeared in yourwork, or in how people talk to
you about wellness?

I mean, you talked about the wellness
industry already there. Andthat's something very different
to how I would use "wellness".
So, the wellness industry, thehappiness industry, self-care –
those things offer solutions tosuffering, but they're also a
way of commodifying andindividualising responsibility
for health and happiness. And Idon't think health is a
lifestyle choice. You know, youcan't simply go swimming and

(31:55):
feel better. But, I think, we'reall still looking for some kind
of feeling of wellness. I thinkthere is a kind of search for
wellness. And Havi Carel writesabout finding health and
happiness within illness, but itrequires changing ideas about
time, about wellbeing, aboutmortality, about the society
that we live in.

It's so interesting that you say, you
know, that you don't thinkhealth is a lifestyle choice,
because there's this piece thatwas written in the HuffPost by
Lucy Pasha-Robinson called"Wellness Culture is Ableism in
Sheep’s Clothing". And she talksabout having a chronic
condition, which isendometriosis. And she writes

(32:40):
literally about this, right? Shesays, and I'm quoting, "the
wellness industry sermon ofconstantly striving to 'fix'
something, and asking you topart with money in order to do
so is inherently ableist. Itsells the idea that if we are
ill we are broken, and thathealth is a lifestyle choice."
And I think your perspective onthat, as it relates to people

(33:02):
who have illnesses, is reallyinteresting, particularly around
your work with people who haveillness, and how they talk about
pretty basic, but really vital,things like sleep, food and
exercise, as opposed to this bigindustry.

That's a beautiful quote. I think, for
me, it's about finding comfort,not cure; it's about being
vulnerable, about making spacefor that vulnerability – keeping
afloat.

So, on the theme of kind of taking care of
ourselves, I wanted to turn nowto this idea of the "nature
cure". And that's an idea thatsuggests that we can feel better
when we're out – let's, youknow, go with swimming here – in
nature, whatever that is. But –and you kind of have mentioned

(33:49):
this in some of what you've beensaying, Charlotte – that
actually sometimes that natureis actually pretty damaged; and
I'd like to add here, maybe, inpart because of our consumption
and wellbeing practicesthemselves, you know –
microplastics in beautyproducts, let's say. You know.
Does this mean that maybe weneed a more holistic notion of
wellness – like, human wellness?
If we want to get the benefitsof swimming, then we want our

(34:11):
bodies of water to be well,also.

Yeah, our own wellbeing is intimately
entangled with the wellbeing ofour planet. Wild swimming is a
really good example for this, Ithink, because it's not just
going for a swim in a nice bluesea. It's just not that at all.
Wild swimming is restorative,but it's also really risky. The

(34:38):
waters in the UK are cold.
They're also really polluted.
But that doesn't stop peopleswimming in them and trying to
find some comfort rather thancure. Samantha Walton writes
really beautifully aboutimmersing her vulnerable body in
the vulnerable water, keepingher head above the water because
she doesn't want to swallow itand get sick. And Clifton Evers

(34:59):
has written about the idea of"polluted leisure", describing
surfing in polluted waters aswellbeing with pollution. I hope
that the realities of the watersthat we swim in will make us
more vulnerable, but also showus how we're entwined and
entangled, and teach us to bemore caring and have more
ethical relations with thenatural world. No, it's not

(35:20):
something that we can just takefrom.

Charlotte, I think you wanted to draw our
attention to a project calledMoving Oceans, which is based
over where I am, in Australia.

Yeah, Moving Oceans is a really great podcast
project by Rebecca Olive. Andshe has conversations with
different people who are workingwith oceans in different ways,
really drawing our attention tothose more-than-human encounters
that we have and ourrelationships with planetary
health, and that kind ofquestion of scale, and about the

(35:51):
other forms of life that weshare the water with.

Thanks for that information, Charlotte.
We'll definitely put that in theEpisode Notes. So, before we go,
let's jump to the part of theshow where we share our tips for
things out there in theso-called "real world" that we
can read, watch, see, listen orwhatever, to stretch our ideas
about bodies even further.
Charlotte, do you have somethingto suggest?

I have so many things to suggest, but I'm going
to choose one. I want torecommend a book by Nina Mingya
Powles called "Small Bodies ofWater". She weaves together
memoir and nature-writing toexplore a girlhood spent growing
up between two cultures, pain,racism, what it means to belong,
and finding home in bodies ofwater from the wild coastline of

(36:37):
New Zealand to the HampsteadHeath swimming ponds in London.

Oh, that sounds really cool. I have enjoyed
swimming in both New Zealand andHampstead Heath. So, that sounds
right up my alley. Can I gonext, Alexis? I want to
recommend a poem by anAustralian poet, actually,
called Andy Jackson called "TheChange Room". And it's about a

(37:03):
man with Marfan's and theexperience of walking through a
swimming pool and beingrecognised as someone with a
really different body, but thenalso the experience of being in
the water and how liberatingthat can be. And I just want to
kind of quote really quicklyfrom the poem. He says, "I
become that man again,unsettling – shape to be

(37:27):
explained." And I love how thatpoem just really seems to tie
together really nicely all ofthe things that we've spoken
about today.

It's really interesting. For me, my
suggestion would be to look intothe artist Viktoria Modesta, who
performed at the closingceremony for the 2012 London
Paralympics. She has referred toher work, I believe, as a bionic
artist, often displayingtech-fashion with her diverse
array of prosthetic legs. Andshe has new music out, but I was

(37:58):
really intrigued by her firstvideo, a number of years back,
for her song "Prototype" – withlyrics like, "we're limitless,
we're not confined" – where sheopened a bunch of questions, I
feel, about how we live with oras bodies, and also as
societies. It also makes methink about the work of a friend

(38:18):
of mine, Alexandre Baril, whohas worked on things like
becoming an amputee by choice,extreme transformations and,
more generally, the idea ofwilfully acquiring what would be
otherwise understood as animpairment or disability.

Wow, that sounds wild, Alexis. It kind of makes
me think about how, you know,upset my parents were when I
just got tattoos, and I can't... It's like, I guess for
everyone there's always one stepfurther that you can go. Thanks
so much, Charlotte. That was sogreat to speak to you. I know

(38:56):
that it's, you know – we've hada very disembodied experience
here, all three of us indifferent parts of the world.
But I think we've still managedto have a really lovely intimate
conversation.

Thanks, Rosie.
It was really lovely to be herewith you.

And that's it for this month. You can catch
this reading list includingthose recommendations, and one
from our producer Alice, byclicking on our podcasts page at
The Sociological Review website;or have a scroll through our
Episode Notes in the app you'reusing to hear this. Rosie, what
I'll take away from today'sepisode I think is Charlotte's
discussion on her research, itreally made me kind of look back

(39:39):
at my own experiences of asthmaand diabetes, and see it through
a different lens. Maybe not asthings that were necessarily,
well, on one side, things thatwere happening to my body, but
also how I – as my own body –was changing over time in the
way that I was experiencing thatsubjectively. What about you?

Yeah, I mean, I think I am going to think about
how prioritising health, insteadof thinking about wellness, is
actually or can becounter-capitalist. I really, I
really liked that idea.

So, next month we're talking about
"cities", or I guess you couldsay the body in urban space.

If you've enjoyed listening to Uncommon Sense, do
tap "follow" and rate or reviewus in whatever app you're using,
and share us with your friendsand family.

Our executive producer was Alice
Bloch. Our sound engineer wasDave Crackles. Thanks for
listening. Bye.

Bye!

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