ABSTRACT
The time is right for a new text on relationships between water, health and well-being. Across many different subjects, there is an enhanced orientation towards the water, and a new hydrophilic turn has emerged with a particular focus on aspects of water that are affective, life-enhancing and health-enabling. Waters have, over a considerable time span, been identifiable both as sites of healing and as material healing substances. Those long histories of water’s differential role as a healing ‘product’ can be found across cultures, from Roman Baths and spas, to contemporary indigenous spaces from Peru to Polynesia. There is an increasing interest in the lived experiences of health within blue spaces incorporating aspects of embodiment and emotion. A very different form of hydrophilic experience is recounted by Allison Williams, Ashleigh Patterson and Morgan Parnell in their discussion of a yoga retreat in the Bahamas.
