The ground Zero of a generation. Borders, neoliberalism and sports through the material culture of the skateboard scene in Tijuana

This article considers the conceptual ambiguity of skateboarding, aphenomenon that has undergone a process of globalization over thepast twenty years, redefining itself in peripheral regions worldwide. Iaddress this trend by focussing on material culture in my anthropolog-ical research on skateboarding at the México-U.S. border. The liberal-ization of this border over the past three decades has led to therelocation of the global skateboard production to Mexico’s industriamaquiladora. Through an ethnographic case, I show how this external-ization in the so-called Global South of Tijuana has triggered an informallocal culture representative of a transborder scene. By approaching theborder as a ‘contact zone’, and skateboards’ biographies as one of itsmaterial manifestations, I reflect on both the asymmetries underlayingthe contemporary neoliberal sports and the grassroots creative domes-tications of their scripts, artifacts, and imaginaries by local actors; even-tually rethinking where the West of global skateboarding is located.