Scuba Diving Practices in Greece. A Historical Ethongraphy of Technology, Self, Body, and Nature

Книга на английском языке
This book provides a historical-sociological analysis of recreational scuba diving practices. Starting from a national case study, Greece, the book analyzes the gradually evolving global institutional arrangements of this version of underwater recreational activities. Based on the author’s experience as a former diving instructor and on an historical and sociological research of scuba diving in Greece, the book examines the stages of institutionalization of scuba diving as a leisure practice on a global scale, from 1945 to the present day. It combines two traditions: the phenomenological approach of underwater multisensory embodied experience and tourism studies. The two main research questions that the project answers are (a) how scuba diving has historically been shaped as a leisure activity, (b) how has underwater experience been conceptually shaped as a leisure activity. This case is an excellent example for exploring the relationship between society, technology, body and modern practices of self in the late modernity world, under a phenomenological and historical perspective.

Contents
1 Introduction: Scuba Diving as a Global Leisure Activity
Diving in Greece
Diving Everywhere: A Globalized Leisure Community
Underwater Entangleds
Pleasure and the Moral Gaze
Exploring the Underwater Self and Nature
Book Outline
2 The Global in the Local: Scuba Diving in Greece
Researching the Local, Understanding the Global
Research Methods
Autoethnography
Amphibious Ethnography and Interviews
Digital Ethnography
The Magazines
The Archives
The Historical Ethnographic Perspective
3 Technology and Underwater Worlds
Imaginary Diving Technologies
Realizing Utopias and Rising Dystopias
Applied Technoscience: Helmets, Sponge Fishing and Diving
Accidents in the Dodecanese
Traditional Diving Communities
Parallel Submarine Worlds
4 Diving Technology at the Recreational World
Diving Equipment and Recreation Diving
Achieving Autonomy Underwater: The Regulator
Safety and Comfort
Technology as a Pole of Diving Clusters
Things and Humans Under the Surface of the Sea
The Technology Sensory
A Magic World
Beyond the Underwater World
The Era of Diving Heritization
Diving Past as Cultural Heritage
Metamorphoses: Bellstone Diving as a Sport
Women in New Underwater Worlds
5 From the Navy to the Sport’s World
Brawny Dives
The “Underwater Men,” the Bible of Scuba Diving in Greece
Significant Biographies
A New Ethos
The Sportization of Scuba Diving
The Hellenic Federation of Underwater Activities (EOUDA)
The Navy and the Federation
Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine
Standardization and Professionalization of Scuba Diving Education
Standardization Professionalization The Ideology of Safe Diving
6 Underwater Phantasmagoria: The Touristization of Scuba Diving
Phantasmagoria of the Depths
Phantasmagoric Perception of the Depths
Maritime Antiquities in Greece: A Journey From Research
Celebration to Diving Prohibition
Maritime Antiquities and Scuba Diving: The Prehistory
The Desire to Explore the Depths
The Institutionalization of Underwater Archaeology
The Diving Prohibition
A Short Story
The Production of the Underwater Recreational Space
The Seabed as a Contested Field
Underwater Spatial Arrangements
The New Professional View
The Comparative Advantages in a World Market
Recreational Underwater Spectacle for All
7 Breathing Under Water: Scuba Diving as Multisensory Experience
Blue Phantasmagoria: Allure, Senses, and Emotions
Blue Water, Black Water
The Color of the Equipment
Underwater Embodied Self
A Globalized Discourse of Adventure Risk Management
The Care of the Underwater Embodied Self
Diving as a Captivating Multisensory Adventure
Communities
Underwater Sensorium, Body, and Diving Equipment
Underwater Hyperreality?
The Feeling of Flying
Aquaticity: Tradition, Senses, and Emotions
The Soundscape of Scuba Diving
Beyond the Silence
Underwater Breathing as Metaphor
Sensorial Flows and the Desire to Be Elsewhere
8 Pleasure and Aquastalgia
Beyond the Sea Blue Water
The Ecological Problematization of the Greek Depths
A Sensitive Taskscape
Underwater Aesthetics Underwater Ethics and Moralities
“Fishing With Scuba Gear Is Unethical”
“We Leave Only Bubbles”
Technology and Sensitivity
Underwater Ecological Perspectives
Eco-Dive Ethics
Eco-Dive Politics
Aquastalgia
Mediterranean Aquastalgia?
A Globalized Indigenous Underwater Ontology?
Underwater Noble Savages and the Human Being
9 Conclusion: Diving as Travel on the Boundaries
Immersions
Surplus of Underwater Experience
Diving for Pleasure?
Bibliography
Index