The sense of the sea. Phenomenology of surfing on Australia's Gold Coast

Abstract

Starting from a conception of "sport cultures" as historical and cultural products and in turn as spheres of culture production, I analyze from an ethnographic point of view how the practice of surfing on the Australian Gold Coast vehicles not only a complex of technical-motor skills, but also a series of dispositions and values that, together, form a coherent system in which the individual negotiates his or her role and makes sense of what he or she does. Referring to a series of cultural representations inherited more or less organically from the European and Australian literary, artistic, intellectual, and more generally cultural traditions (Romanticism, social modes of beach enjoyment, psychoanalysis, the practice of Surf Life Saving), local surfers have organized a "sea culture" that offers them models for social action, and the coordinates for being able to derive enjoyment from their activity and the ocean.