Abstract

This article provides a phenomenological description of aquatic rescue within the framework of interdisciplinary and reflective social phenom­enology in the Schutzian tradition. Aquatic rescue is a professional discipline involving the care of others, such as bathers, in various environments: beaches, swimming pools, rivers, lakes, lagoons and other water bodies. Care implies not only intervention before the emergency and the need for corresponding assis­tance, but the anticipation and prevention of possible and/or imminent danger as well. One of the central objectives of this work is to clarify how the social relationship of care works from a Schutzian perspective, that is, the relationship involving the embodied intersubjectivity of a shared environment, as well as what is communicated and expressed between lifesavers and between lifesavers and bathers. This characterization requires paying attention to the internal perspective of the participants involved: bathers or victims and lifeguards, the extent of their knowledge and what they have experienced in time and space, along with their skills, subjective meanings involved, and the “because motives” and “in order to motives” of their actions in the context of their projects.