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Introduction
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 Introduction THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT SURFBOARDS. Surfing is an ancient interaction between humans and the environment, a fluid and exciting pastime where breaking waves, the body, and a surfboard interact. As the only essential instrument for surfing, the surfboard is a point of physical connection betweenthebodyandthesurfaceofthewave.Surfersusetheirboardtopaddle with enough momentum to connect with a wave’s shifting energy before maneuvering to their feet and riding its breaking crest toward shore. To surfers , their board is more than a piece of expensive equipment; it is symbolic, even talismanic. Surfboards are emblems of cultural, social, and emotional meanings. Contained in a surfer’s favorite board are physical reminders— marks, scratches, and imperfections—along with memories and stories that embody a surfing life. Etched into surfboards are experiences of joy and elation from skillful rides, embarrassment and disappointment from wipeouts witnessed by others. Surfboards are also products infused with centuries of cultural practice, artisanal skill, and design precedents. This book examines surfboards as artifacts rich in history and cultural meaning. This is also a book about the places where surfboards are made and the people who make them—especially focused on the Pacific region. We explore surfboard making as a form of creative production and local cultural heritage. The story we tell is set against the international popularity and emergence of surfing as a multibillion-dollar industry. As well as discussing the dynamic international situation surrounding the surf industry, we examine three local scenes of surfboard production across the Pacific: O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, Southern California, and east coast Australia. Inthesethreeplaceswevisitedindependentsurfboard-makingworkshops (thirty-three in total) over the course of five years, interviewing people, watching surfboards being made, and sometimes going for a surf or a beer with their workers or owners. These workshops are located in coastal suburbs and towns with vibrant surfing cultures, adjacent to iconic surf breaks. Some, such as Brewer and Downing Surfboards in Hawai‘i and Bennett Surfboards in Australia, had been in the same hands for over five 2 Introduction decades. Hawai‘i, California, and Australia are unquestionably the three most prominent hubs of surfboard making globally, regions where unique skills have developed in designing high-quality surfboards suitable for local conditions. In these surfing places boards are more than sporting goods; they are functional artworks that capture local cultural and environmental qualities, customized and personal tools through which to engage with liquid nature. Since the 1980s surfing has become big business. Companies with local origins including Rip Curl, Quiksilver, and Billabong have turned into corporate entities. Some surf brands have even been listed publicly on stock exchanges and pursue new ways of producing and selling surfing gear to the masses. Surfboards are the figurative heart of a global industry with immense power to fuel consumerism. Tentacles have spread into related retail industries and manufacture of wet suits, apparel, shoes, sunglasses, watches, and hats. Global surf brands have helped popularize the sport and its idyllic image. But with cheaper prices, brand visibility, sophisticated distribution systems, and large marketing budgets, corporate surf firms are also one among many threats to the viability of small surfboard-making workshops in Hawai‘i, Australia, and California. Some of the stories we tell in this book are consequently about how small surfboard-making workshops survive in an increasingly global industry—and what worries surfboard makers about the prospects for making surfboards by hand in an era of cheap mass-produced imports. We tell other stories too: industrial-design stories about the history and secrets of quality surfboard making; geographical stories about the particularities of surfboard production linked to local surfing conditions and subcultures; and historical stories of Polynesian people and the earliest origins of surfboard making. We hope in this book to enhance appreciation of surfboard making as a special form of local creativity invested with emotion, culture, and meaning. At times, though, we also explore the darker side of surfboard production. The surfboard industry involves the exploitation of workers, harmful health effects caused by chemicals and manual work, sexism, fragmentation , broken promises, and general failure to pass down skills to a younger generation. These challenges are matched by an immense reservoir of passion and perseverance among board makers. While surfboards and surfboard manufacturing raise issues of local culture and globalization , there is much more at stake: ownership of heritage, corporate power, emotional work, gender, class, and generational change. This is, then, an apologue of skilled artisans who grew to prominence from countercultural origins within the surfing subculture and their...