Retheorising Edgework: A Feminist Account of High-Risk Leisure Consumption

This research concerns the experiences of the increasing number of women who are
voluntarily engaging with high-risk leisure activities, described here as 'edgework'. This
study seeks to elucidate this increase in women's participation within high-risk consumption
experiences. The theory of edgework concerns the voluntary risk-taking behaviours that
have the potential for life-changing injuries or even death (Lyng, 1990). Edgework
encompasses navigating boundary edges (Lyng, 2014), while seeking to push close to the
'edge', mentally or physically as possible, while avoiding injury or death (Lyng, 1990).
Women's experiences are continually neglected in the edgework literature, with many female
edgeworkers simply labelled deviant. To explore the social, cultural and structural
characteristics that shape women's increasing propensity for voluntary risk-taking, this
study focuses on the experiences of female aerial dancers. Aerial dance is well positioned to
explore edgework as performers are suspended high in the air, using silk ropes, trapezes and
hoops. Beyond these physical risks experienced, as a burgeoning leisure phenomenon aerial
dance is a perfect place to explore the factors shaping women's experiences of high-risk
leisure.
Preliminary insights emerging from prior data collection indicate that female edgeworkers
are forced to negotiate additional social and emotional risks, which their male counterparts
are not confronted with. Through a combination of ethnographic enquiry and narrative based
interviews, this study is uniquely positioned to make a significant contribution to the
understandings of women's experiences of voluntary risk-taking.