The Critical Surf Studies Reader

The evolution of surfing-from the first forms of wave-riding in Oceania, Africa, and the Americas to the inauguration of surfing as a competitive sport at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics-traverses the age of empire, the rise of globalization, and the onset of the digital age, taking on new meanings at each juncture. As corporations have sought to promote surfing as a lifestyle and leisure enterprise, the sport has also narrated its own epic myths that place North America at the center of surf culture and relegate Hawai'i and other indigenous surfing cultures to the margins. The Critical Surf Studies Reader brings together eighteen interdisciplinary essays that explore surfing's history and development as a practice embedded in complex and sometimes oppositional social, political, economic, and cultural relations. Refocusing the history and culture of surfing, this volume pays particular attention to reclaiming the roles that women, indigenous peoples, and people of color have played in surfing.

Contributors. Douglas Booth, Peter Brosius, Robin Canniford, Krista Comer, Kevin Dawson, Clifton Evers, Chris Gibson, Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee, Scott Laderman, Kristin Lawler, lisahunter, Colleen McGloin, Patrick Moser, Tara Ruttenberg, Cori Schumacher, Alexander Sotelo Eastman, Glen Thompson, Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, Andrew Warren, Belinda Wheaton

List of Abbreviations  ix
Acknowledgments  xi
Introduction / Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee and Alexander Sotelo Eastman  1
Part I. Coloniality and Decolonization
1. On a Mission: Hiram Bingham and the Rhetoric of Urgency / Patrick Moser  29
2. A World Apart: Pleasure, Rebellion, and the Politics of Surf Tourism / Scott Laderman  47
3. Kai Ea: Rising Waves of National and Ethnic Hawaiian Identities / Isaiah Helekunihi Walker  62
4. Consolidation, Creativity, and (de)Colonization in the State of Modern Surfing / Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee and Alexander Sotelo Eastman  84
5. Decolonizing Sustainable Surf Tourism / Tara Ruttenberg and Peter Brosius  109
Part II. Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
6. Surfing beyond Racial and Colonial Imperatives in Early Modern Atlantic Africa and Oceania / Kevin Dawson  135
7. Pushing under the Whitewash: Revisiting the Making of South Africa's Surfing Sixties / Glen Thompson  155
8. Space Invaders in Surfing's White Tribe: Exploring Surfing, Race, and Identity / Belinda Wheaton  177
9. Indigenous Surfing: Pedagogy, Pleasure, and Decolonial Practice / Colleen McGloin  196
10. Appropriating Surfing and the Politics of Indigenous Authenticity / Dina Gilio-Whitaker  214
Part III. Feminist Critical Geography
11. Surfeminism, Critical Regionalism, and Public Scholarship / Krista Comer  235
12. Desexing Surfing? Pedagogies of Possibility / lisahunter  263
13. "My Mother Is a Fish": From Stealth Feminism to Surfeminism / Cori Schumacher  284
Part IV. Capitalism, Economics, and the Commodification of Surf Culture
14. Free Ride: The Food Stamp Surfer, American Counterculture, and the Refusal of Work / Kristin Lawler  305
15. The Political Economy of Surfing Culture: Production, Profit, and Representation / Douglas Booth  318
16. Soulful and Precarious: The Working Experiences of Surfboard Makers / Andrew Warren and Chris Gibson  342
17. Branded Primitives / Robin Canniford  365
18. Surfing and Contemporary China / Clifton Evers  386
Bibliography  403
Contributors  443
Index  449