Making Friends With The Neighbours

I swim up through the remnants of whitewater and pull on my legrope to find my board. I grab it and get back on, paddling immediately back out towards the break. A few seconds in, I remember how strong the rip is and start to pull harder through the water… My arms are already burning and I’m trying to use my stomach muscles and lower back to paddle. Argh! This sucks. I want to be strong, I want to be fast through the water and I curse my pathetic arms, my small shoulders and my weak stomach. I curse my body that remains, and will always remain, so new to surfing, to this action of moving through the ocean water and currents. A youth spent dancing and walking and travelling and reading has built and conditioned my mind and my legs, but my surfing body feels weak and small and not up to the task. Fuck this! I go in and walk back around. I walk through the waves until there’s a break in the set and I jump back on my board and paddle hard. I struggle to keep my mi...

I had fun attending the Oceanic Popular Cultures Association conference in Honolulu earlier this year. This is a copy of the paper I presented there... Citizens of Surfing It is touching to hear writers talk about graffiti and the immensely powerful role it has played in their lives. At times, it almost sounds as if they are talking about an old friend, someone who has stepped in and stuck with them through good times and bad (Macdonald, 2001: 179). Because surfing is commonly described by many non-surfers as simply a playful activity, there appears to be some trepidation in imagining what potential it has beyond people’s personal lives (Fiske, 1989 a : 49; Ford & Brown, 2006: 67). However, there’s great potential for social and cultural change in ways that don’t include shouting for it from the rooftops (Fiske, 1989 a : 187). Sometimes the development of social and cultural understanding and negotiation is implicit in the enactment of a culture, where actions ma...

Well, considering that I last posted in AUGUST LAST YEAR, I can report that a lot has occurred... I finished my thesis and that is all done and dusted - marks back, graduation in a week and the horror of an Honours year safely behind me. After taking a fairly significant amount of time away from even considering the things that I wrote about last year, I am back. I am going to start back with this blog and re-establish exactly what it is about surfing culture that keeps me so passionate and intrigued. My thesis work raised more questions and idea that it ever sufficiently answered, but that is the nature of thought and study and that is what keeps us driving forward and discovering new possibilities. Stay tuned...