From subversion to sport: Rethinking surf history and its cultural dualities

Surf writers of the twentieth century preserved the act of wave-riding through works describing self-experiences, oral tales and a romanticized view of the littoral space. These emotive works mythologized the sport as a holy endeavour. With male writers dominating the field, surfing was preserved as an exclusive, masculine lifestyle. By the end of the century, a branch of surf studies started to develop through fresh scholarly works, distanced from former biographic and philosophical memoirs. New surf scholars, such as Matt Warshaw, have propagated the need to critically demythologize surfing’s past, through specialized case studies and quantifiable research. With this turn towards critical thinking, surf scholars have emerged within the growing field of new sport history. Through this multi-disciplinary network, surf scholars have compiled fresh assessments of the sport and its cultures, which has helped bring surfing’s diverse past to the foreground. This introduction explores how recent surf scholarship has been a vital addition to new sport history. This Special Issue speaks to the geographic reach of surfing and how surfing’s cultural trajectory has deeply impacted global populations.