Sean Heath

I am an endlessly curious scholar. My career in the making within academia began in research and has now moved into reserach administration and management. I’m an anthropologist by training and expert on the cultural manifestations of sport, with a particular focus on wellbeing in blue spaces/watery environments. This includes swimming, cold water bathing, and other immersive leisure and recreational activities.

I have extensive international experience working in higher education, having lived, worked, and conducted research in Canada, the UK, Belgium, and Norway. I leverage this transcultural experience to inform my everyday practices as a leader within my chosen scientific field and my ongoing support for academics as a research advisor.

My interdisciplinary expertise and scholarly interests lies at the intersection of outdoor sport/recreation, health and wellbeing, and environmental policy and practice. I have published on the politics of bodily movement, the senses, water stewardship, childhood and youth, gender, and play.

I am a co-founding member of the International Network of Sport Anthropology (INSA), a grassroots organization promoting the study of sport, games, play, recreation, and leisure through an anthropological lens. I continue to work as a volunteer coach and researcher for Football 4 Peace International (F4P), a Sport for Development and Peace social engagement project. Through this organization I have delivered bespoke values-based palliative and coaching programs, in both Colombia and the UK, which are designed in and for areas suffering from high levels of cross-community conflict.

I received my PhD in Social Anthropology from the School of Education, Sport, and Health Sciences at the University of Brighton, UK (2022).

I hold an MA in Anthropology from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada (2017).