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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Clifton EversORCiD
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While research has established links between traditional Global North masculinities and devastating environmental damage (MacGregor, 2018; UN Climate Change, 2022), little attention has been paid to how working-class men in post-industrial communities in the UK respond to environmental damage both ongoing and historical. This paper examines how some of these men are using a daily, even banal, informal more-than-human pedagogical process to grasp at nature-based wellbeing in post-industrial ‘wastelands’.Drawing on a decade-long ethnographic study of men's 'blue space' leisure groups (e.g., surfers, fishermen, swimmers, beachwalkers), this research explores how these men make sense of and adapt to what Lora-Wainwright (2021) terms 'toxic natures'. The research setting is particularly significant, situated in a region marked by two centuries of intensive industrialisation followed by de-industrialisation, resulting in pervasive environmental contamination and damage. This context is further complicated by contemporary challenges: according to the Office of National Statistics (2023), the region experiences some of the UK's most severe structural deficits in environmental quality, wellbeing indicators, and socio-economic support systems.The research reveals how men experience an enskilment through 'polluted leisure pedagogy' - a process shaped by emotional, material, bodily, cultural, social, and economic factors. I conclude by discussing how some participants shift from traditional industrial masculinity toward an ecological orientation focused on environmental repair and justice (Hultman & Pulé, 2018), and how others actively resist this transformation
Author(s): Evers C
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: Health, Environment, and AnThropology (HEAT) 2025
Year of Conference: 2025
Online publication date: 24/04/2025
Acceptance date: 03/03/2025
Publisher: Durham University and Edinburgh University
URL: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/anthropology/events/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2025/
