Bodies in water: Embodiment, social worlds, and fluid motion in competitive age-group swim clubs

This thesis undertakes an anthropological examination of the everyday sport practices of boys and girls who belong to swim clubs in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Specifically, it considers how the social worlds of swimmers can be understood as complex forms of community and the ways in which and swim clubs represent more than a sport. It examines how boys and girls come to understand and use their bodies in the water, and how, through the processes of training and play, they come to acquire embodied knowledge's of swimming and motion in the water. Finally, it argues that by training together and yet competing separately, boys and girls experience gender as a subtle but salient marker amongst and between young athletes enrolled in swim clubs.