All at sea: living the tension of mobility and place

Sailing amongst the Hebridean islands of Scotland offers rich and diverse cultural and natural experiences at sea and ashore. After painting a rich picture of this world, the chapter analyses the interplay of the liminal spaces and places at sea, on board, and ashore on the visiting crew through the lenses of kinship and otherness. Autonomy emerges variously as a central idea for the wildlife, the local island cultures, and the visiting crew, all far from established cultural centres. Of the many pedagogical threads that tangle with this autonomy for the crew, three are explored: mobility, otherness, and ways of knowing. The chapter proposes that this can be understood as ‘edgework’ potentially leading to sustained personal transformation. The educational potential of such experiences to promote personal aliveness, offer alternative ontologies of living differently together in nature, and encourage wider responsibility for and engagement in cultural change is discussed.