‘Weather work’: embodiment and weather learning in a national outdoor exercise programme

Abstract

Over the past 25 years, UK government policy exhortations to promote and increase exercise and physical activity levels in the population have increased in volume. In recent years, too, there has been growing sociological interest in exercise and physical activity embodiment issues, including within phenomenologically-inspired research into lived-body experiences. This article contributes original insights to a developing body of phenomenological-sociological empirical work in this domain, in addressing the lived experience of organised exercise in outdoor environments, and specifically in theorising the role of ‘lived weather’ in contouring these experiences. It thus addresses the call by Vannini et al. (2012) to remedy the notable ‘absent-presence’ of weather in much social science research. Drawing upon data from a two-year multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional ethnographic study of a nationwide exercise programme in Wales, UK, this article examines participants’ (n = 146) lived experience of weather, and theorises their ‘weather learning’, and ‘weather work’, both of which emerged as highly salient in the findings.

Keywords:

• Weather
• weather work
• phenomenology
• phenomenological sociology
• outdoor exercise
• physical activity

Acknowledgements

My thanks to members of the full research team: Professor Nigel Curry (University of the West of England), Dr Aspasia Leledaki (University of Exeter) and Dr Michael Clark (University of Gloucestershire), for all their help in undertaking the research, and for permission to use data in this particular publication. The research upon which this article is based was commissioned and funded by Sport Wales to evaluate the Mentro Allan Programme. Mentro Allan was a UK Big Lottery-funded initiative managed by a National Partnership of organisations, including: Sport Wales, Countryside Council for Wales, Public Health Wales, Wales Council for Voluntary Action and the Welsh Local Government Association.

Notes

1. The Big Lottery Fund is a non-departmental public body responsible for distributing funds raised by the National Lottery for ‘good causes’. Since 2004 it has awarded over £6.2 billion to more than 130,000 projects across the UK. See: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/.

2. The overall research project utilised a mixed-methods approach, but here it is the ethnographic component upon which I focus.