Constructing safety in scuba diving : a discursive psychology study

Abstract

Scuba diving has been around for years and has its origins in history many centuries ago. It has been widely explored and researched as a subject of scientific, medical, and recreational interest. More recently, with the development of sport psychology, it has become the focus of a few social scientists. This research is intended on making a contribution not only to such research in the field of sport psychology and scuba diving, but also that of discursive psychology. This study was executed from a discursive position, using ideas and methods from discursive analysis and applying them to the concept of diving safety. An attempt was made to view discourse as talk, and as such analyze talk as that what is being said. While most research on diving safety focus on how panic and fear are inner entities that drive behaviour leading to accidents, injury and death, this research wanted to look at those inner states as ways of talk and how they are interactionally constructed in talk. The context within which the diving course took place can be divided into three contexts, namely the classroom, the pool and the open water environment. Research was conducted within in the classroom and pool environment, and data consisted of voice recordings of natural conversations in the training context. This research wants to offer alternative explanations in psychology and sport, through explicating what subjects are saying, relating their talk to their situations and actions, and showing how specific situations incite certain types of talk. In conclusion, this was not only a study using naturalistic conversations, but also a study of conversations.