Safia Bailey is a postgraduate researcher at the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences at Cardiff University. She is currently conducting her PhD research into the swimming communities of England’s longest river: the Thames. Her research aims to explore the inclusions and exclusions of this community, the bodily entanglements that arise from immersion into wild waters, and ideas of ecological and human wellbeing. Her research will journey over the course of one year to capture the seasonal variations of these social worlds, using mobile and sensory methods to, quite literally, dive in.  She is particularly interested in themes of belonging and becoming, nonhuman entanglements, and ecological and human wellbeing.  Her project is: A Year of Immersion into the River Thames: Diving into the seasonal social worlds of river swimming.

She shared details of her research with me and the conversation can be found in the ‘Chats, Memories and Stories’ page. Further information about her project is available on her website: riverthamesreflections.org