The Surfing Historian: Recent Episodes
Jason Old
The Surfing Historian, hosted by Jason Old, brings together international scholars from an eclectic range of academic fields, among them, humanities, social sciences, and surf studies (yes, that's a real field) to share their most recent research. Jason is a historian, surfer, world traveler, and college professor, with connections to academics doing interesting and noteworthy work in their respective fields—many of whom are surfers themselves! In this podcast, Jason explores a wide range of thought-provoking topics with his friends and colleagues, diving deeper into their latest research, and providing them with a platform to share their insights and findings. We’ll steer clear of the pretentious jargon that turns many non-academics away. These episodes are for surfers, historians, surf-historians, and everyone in between. So paddle out with Jason and his colleagues as they glide through the world of academia!
Dr. Aaron Lewis, a historian of the U.S. South, talks about his dissertation on the historical memories of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and the importance of studying the Confederacy and its role in perpetuating white supremacy throughout U.S. history. He also discusses how/why Confederate symbols are still present in the United States today and the way their meanings have changed throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr. Aaron Lewis has a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida. To read Dr. Lewis’ dissertation, click here: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8463/
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For the final episode of Season Two, Dr. Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, and I discuss "surfonomics", the threats our oceans and coasts face, and how surfing can play a large role in conserving our planet.
Chad earned his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from UCLA, and has been working in ocean and coastal conservation for over 25 years, working at the intersection of advocacy, ocean recreation, and grassroots organizing. His research at UCLA led him to become a founder in the field of “surfonomics,” which studies the economic value of surfing and ocean recreation.
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For S2: E20, I am joined by surf historian Katie Hunt. Katie is in the home stretch of her History Ph.D. at the University of Kent. She’s an avid surfer at her home break in North Devon. That is…when the waves are good.
In this episode, Katie offers us a brief history of the “surf shop,” as well as an overview of its founding years in California from 1935 to 1959—an era in California surfing history considered the golden years of isolated nomadic surf communities. We also dig into the “feeling” one gets from being in a surf shop, and how surf shops in non-coastal towns can still engender a feeling of nostalgia to surfers longing to be in the water.
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The is a special episode with "The Surfing Historian" Podcast host, Jason Old, where he addresses a few questions from one of our loyal listeners. The questions are about his specific research on the proliferation of surf tourism in Nicaragua. Do you have questions for our host? Feel free to visit us at surfinghistorian.com and send your questions on our contact page.
For today’s episode, I chat with Dr. Stefan Krause about his research on surf tourism in Costa Rica and his work on cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia.
Stefan is the Program Director of Anthropology at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. His academic research focuses primarily on the anthropology of tourism and cultural heritage. He holds an Master’s degree from San Diego State University where he conducted research on surf tourism in Costa Rica. Stefan’s anthropology PhD, however, is from the University of South Florida. There, he shifted his attention away from Central America to study the Western Pacific, focusing on the preservation of traditions and customs on the island of Yap in the nation of the Federated States of Micronesia.
You can check out his research at lamar.academia.edu/StefanKrause.
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For S2: E18, I chat with Jesse Reiblich, professor of marine law and policy at the University of Rhode Island, about surf break protection and his most recently published article, "A Global Review of Legal Protection Mechanisms for the Management of Surf Breaks," which he co-published in Marine Policy with Dr. Shane Orchard and Mauricio dos Santos.
Jesse Reiblich is an attorney and expert in coastal and marine law and policy. He teaches and researches at the University of Rhode Island in the Marine Affairs Department. Jesse has published on many topics, including coastal access and equity, climate change policy, the public trust doctrine, water law, coastal adaptation, the California Coastal Act, and surf break protection. His upcoming research will focus on environmental justice concerns in the U.S. Territories, coastal access and recreation, and the efficacy of statutory coastal laws.
Article Summary
Legal protection has become essential for managing the world’s surf breaks much as it has for other marine and coastal protected areas. This paper presents the first systematic review of global developments in this field. We used a keyword literature search and thematic content analysis to characterize legal protection mechanisms that are designed for surf breaks or have been specifically applied to address surf break protection needs. They are currently found in six countries, protect over 500 surf breaks, and include examples of single-location mechanisms (e.g., Malibu in USA, Punta de Lobos in Chile) and national-level protection mechanisms addressing multiple surf breaks (e.g., New Zealand and Peru). Across all examples we identified 63 discrete themes that can be drawn upon to design and communicate protection measures and present these in a typology that highlights contributing ideas.
Thematic analysis identified a major distinction between process and outcome-based requirements. More comprehensive protections can be recognized by attention to a wider range of threat classes and in the detail provided for decision support, with the two ideally working together to identify the minimum assessment requirements for development proposals. Variation in levels of protection is a key topic for consideration as is the process by which locations are identified or qualified for legal protections to apply. There is also a need to evaluate the effectiveness of provisions already in place, carrying with it the need for outcomes-based monitoring which is currently rare.
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For S2: E17, I chat with Dr. Jérémy Lemarié, Associate Professor of Sports Management at the University of Reims in France, about his research on surf tourism, marketing surfing, surfer activism, and solidarity within the global surf community.
Jeremy’s research more broadly examines sports and tourism in the United States and in Polynesia. After conducting fieldwork in California and Hawaii for three years, he published a book on the commodification of Hawaiian culture through surf tourism and has also published a number of journal articles on the professionalization of lifestyle sports and human-nature interactions.
As a professor, he’s taught courses on Management, Marketing, Tourism, Sociology, History and Cultural Anthropology at 8 universities. Among them, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Paris Sorbonne University, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
Check out all his scholarly work at univ-reims.academia.edu/JeremyLemarie.
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For S2: E16, I interview Environmental Scientist Dr. Ed Atkin about his research on developing tools and guidelines for surfing resource management. In New Zealand, Ed works for eCoast Marine Consulting and Research, conducting research in the areas of surf science and surfing resource management. In addition to his doctoral and consulting work, we also chat about his involvement with the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Surfing Research and the International Association of Surfing Researchers—organizations that he has been passionately involved with for quite a while.
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For S2: E15, I interview ethnomusicologist Dr. Tim Cooley about his book Surfing about Music. Tim is a music professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research interests center around popular and vernacular music of Central Europe (notably, Poland) and North America—paying particular attention to the roles of musicking in creating individual and community identities. In this intriguing episode, he and I chat about how surf music and how “musicking about surfing” has changed as cultural ideas about surfing itself changed. This wonderful book is featured on surfinghistorian.com.
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For episode 14, I interview journalist and novelist, Michael Scott Moore. Michael’s the author of Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results—a travel book about surfing that was revered as one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.
While the main focus of our conversation is on his surfing book, wealso make time to chat about his harrowing experience as a hostage in Africa as well.
Shortly after the publication of Sweetness and Blood, Michael was kidnapped in early 2012 on a reporting trip to Somalia and held hostage by pirates for 32 months. He wrote a memoir about this experience that became an international bestseller. That book is titled The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast.We briefly dig into that experience and book project at the end of the episode.
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For Episode 13, I chat with Dr. Krista Comer, professor of American Studies and Feminist Studies at Rice University, about the origins of her book Surfer Girls in the New World Order (published in 2010), as well as her work on "surfeminism." We also chat about The Institute for Women Surfers, an organization she co-founded 2012, along with her reflections on the field of surf studies–as it has massively expanded globally in the last 10+ years. The episode concludes with a teaser about her forthcoming book, Living West as Feminists: Conversations about the Where of Us.
Krista's book, Surfer Girls in the New World Order is featured on surfinghistorian.com. For more information on her other projects, visit The Institute for Women Surfers and The Pink Nose Revolution.
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For Episode 12, I chat with fellow surf historian, Dr. Kevin Dawson, about his book, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Cultures in the African Diaspora.
Undercurrents of Power centers around African traditions and the ways in which similar traditions—swimming, diving, boat making, and even surfing—emerged within African diasporic communities. This book not only chronicles the experiences of enslaved maritime workers, but also helps to trace and untangle many of their cultural and social traditions. This wonderful book is featured on surfinghistorian.com.
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For this episode, social anthropologist and founder of "The PhiloSurfer Club," Dr. Ignacio Iturralde, and I explore surfing and its connection to philosophical thought, looking at how powerful the ocean metaphor is as an energy and dimension that transcends us, that is bigger than us, and that we can't control.
We also chat about his current philosophical research project, which focuses on the intersectionality of surfing culture and philosophy, as well as his forthcoming book, Philosophical Reflections on Water—a book that dives into the transformative potential of philosophy and surfing as self-improvement disciplines.
The book itself has a threefold objective: to cultivate self-awareness within the surfing community; to engage a broader audience in philosophy by leveraging the allure of surfing; and to ultimately achieve a state of what he calls "wateraxia" – or “a stoked state of mind that empowers individuals to navigate the political turmoil and polarization of our hyper-individualized digital era.”
Click here to join "The PhiloSurfer Club"
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For S2: E10, I sit down with Dr. Briana (“Brie”) Iatarola to discuss her research on La Libertad, El Salvador and Trestles in San Clemente, California. In the first half of the interview, Brie and I chat about the historical transformation of El Salvador into an internationally recognized "wavetopia" in the wake of the bloody 12-year conflict, which ended in 1992.
For the second half, we discuss the impacts of sea level rise at Trestles since 2016 and the environmental challenges that coastal communities including San Clemente and San Diego face, highlighting collaborative community resilience strategies as possible solutions.
Dr. Iatarola holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the Department of Communication and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at U.C. San Diego.
She currently teaches for Seventh College's Synthesis Program at U.C. San Diego, and is an invited instructor for a class about the History of Television for the Television, Film, and New Media Critical Studies Program at San Diego State University.
Dissertation abstract (2018): ‘Saved Forever?’: An Eco-Ethnography of Trestles’ Surfscape
Master’s abstract (2011): “Beyond the waves: economic and cultural effects of the global surf industry in El Tunco, El Salvador”
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For episode 9, Canadian sports scholar, Dr. Bettina Callary, and I talk about Indigenous sport participation and the fully Indigenous surf program that she and her colleagues are working on in Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island) in conjunction with the Surfing Association of Nova Scotia and the First Nation Mi’kmaq Physical Activity Leaders (MPALs).
Bettina is the Canada Research Chair in Sport Coaching and Adult Learning and an Associate Professor in the Department of Experiential Studies in Community and Sport at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She researches coach education and development strategies, coach developers, and psychosocial understandings of inclusive coaching (e.g., coaching Masters Athletes, women coaches, Indigenous coaches and sport). She leads the Community Active Sport Training and Learning (CoASTaL) lab. Dr. Callary is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Sport Coaching Journal. She wrote the books Coach Education and Development in Sport, published by Routledge in 2020, and Coaching Masters Athletes: Advancing Research and Practice in Adult Sport, published by Routledge in 2021.
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For Episode 8, I sit down with Brazilian surfer, motorcyclist, journeyman, and author of “Pan-American Soul: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Surf Trip from California to Brazil,” Adrian Kojin. Adrian and I talk about his surfing motorcycle foray through Latin America in the late 1980s as well as his more recent experience, which was a reboot of that original trip. We also chat about whether or not he managed to find “the meaning of life” during his epic journey.
Adrian’s book is featured on surfinghistorian.com.
You can also read more about his adventures at Surfline.
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For Episode 7 (S2: E7), Dr. Patrick Moser and I talk about the history of California beach culture from 1907 to 1945, as well as how one goes about writing surf history and the process of publication with a university press or a surfing magazine.
Patrick is a professor of writing and French at Drury University and he’s recently finished a biography on George Freeth, titled, Surf and Rescue: George Freeth and the Birth of California Beach Culture. Patrick was also the editor of the book Pacific Passages: An Anthology of Surf Writing. Additionally, he’s collaborated with former surfing world champion Shaun Tomson on two books: Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life and The Code: The Power of "I Will," all of which are featured on the surfinghistorian.com homepage.
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For Episode 6, I sat down with public health expert Jesse Casanova. Jesse is the Assistant Director for International Programs at the University of South Florida Health International. While the focus of this episode is to discuss the health risks associated with international surf travel, we also wanted to provide all of our listeners with some tangible ways to mitigate illness during their travels.
Jesse Casanova has worked in the field of public health for over 15 years and was a Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response volunteer in Togo, Cameroon, and Senegal. In addition, Jesse has worked in global health, helping to manage the malaria health portfolio for Cameroon from the U.S. Embassy, he WAS also the liaison between Malaria No More and Global Fund in Cameroon, and has helped to train Peace Corps counterparts from over 10 sub-Saharan African countries.
His research at USF includes hearing health projects in Malawi and South Africa, river blindness elimination projects in Nigeria with the Gates Foundation, G4 Surveillance System restructuring proposals with Pasteur Institute of Dakar in Senegal, and Intimate Partner violence training of trainers in Egypt. Jesse is finishing his DrPH degree in Public Health Leadership and holds a master’s degree in international Humanitarian Action from the University of Deusto in Spain.
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In this episode, I sit down with Environmental Science and Resource Management professor, Dr. Dan Reineman, to talk about coastal resource management; his career and life as a professional “coastographer” (a word he made up); and the role of surfers as stewards of their home break. For the bulk of the episode, we focus our attention largely on two places: Southern California and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The episode itself is centered around an article Dan co-wrote with colleague, Nick Sadrpour, titled “The Impacts of Climate Change on Surfing Resources.”
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For this episode, I interview sociologist Dr. Kristin Lawler about her book, The American Surfer: Radical Culture and Capitalism; we also chat about her essay on the Nietzschean connections between early twentieth century surfers and the hobos of the Industrial Workers of the World–an essay that will be published in the forthcoming book, Roll and Flow: The Political Ontology of Surfing and Skateboarding; and finally, I get her thoughts on the current state of critical surf studies as a field of academic inquiry.
Dr. Lawler is a professor of sociology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City. Her first book, The American Surfer, was published by Routledge in 2011, and her new book, co-edited with Michael Roberts and David Cline, entitled Roll and Flow, is being published by San Diego State University Press and should be available this fall. The American Surfer, however, is featured on surfinghistorian.com.
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In this episode, conducted by The Surfing Historian producer, Taylor Ramone, she talks with podcast host and historian, Dr. Jason Old, about his research on the surfing history of Nicaragua, as well as the motivations behind writing his dissertation, “The Politics of Waves: A Transnational and Cultural Surfing History of Popoyo, Nicaragua.” Jason’s research has three principal aims: First, to show how external conditions created an economic framework conducive to buying property and developing this part of Nicaragua. Second, to explain the link between surfing and Tola's transformation from a coastal periphery to an international tourism hotspot. Third, to track the proliferation of a robust surfing subculture among Tola’s rural residents, as well as surfing’s evolution into a Nicaraguan national sport.
You can read Jason’s dissertation along with other published articles by him at the following link: https://seuniversity.academia.edu/JasonOld.
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For Episode 2, I interviewed Dr. Steve Estes. Steve is a history professor at Sonoma State University and in this episode we talk about his book, Surfing the South: The Search for Waves and the People Who Ride Them. This book explores the varying ways that surfing intersects with business, music, race, gender, environmentalism, and politics in the American South.
To fully explore this unsung surfing world, Steve undertook a journey that stretched more than 2,300 miles, traveling from the coast of Texas to Ocean City, Maryland. Along the way he interviewed and surfed alongside dozens of people—wealthy and poor, men and women, Black and white—all of whom opened up about their lives, how they saw themselves, and what the sport means to them. They also talked about race, class, the environment, and how surfing has shaped their identities.
Steve’s book is featured on the homepage at surfinghistorian.com.
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Dr. Aaron James is a philosophy professor at the University of California in Irvine. In this episode, he and I talk about his book, Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry Into a Life of Meaning. This is a book on philosophy that grapples with surfer’s know-how as it relates to questions about freedom, control, flow, happiness, being, transcendence, society, and the meaning of life more broadly– Simply put, Aaron argues that we should work less and go surfing instead. His book can be found at surfinghistorian.com on the homepage under “Featured Books.” In addition to exploring the more philosophical themes associated with surfing and life, the episode ends with Aaron talking about his nonprofit project in Indonesia.
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Welcome back for Season Two! This season we’ll explore the origins of surfing itself, from its roots, rituals, and the existential allure of the waves, to the stigmas of being a surf studies scholar—all of which underscore the personal motivations for writing my dissertation, “The Politics of Waves: A Transnational and Cultural Surfing History of Popoyo, Nicaragua.”
A huge shout out to our loyal listeners from last season, and to all of the new listeners just tuning in! We’re stoked to have you all as part of another amazing season of The Surfing Historian. So let’s paddle out together and ride through the world of academia!
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In this last episode of the season, I chat with Dr. Donald Wright. Don is a Canadian historian at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, a small city in Atlantic Canada. His research interests include Canadian political, intellectual, and cultural history. For this episode, Don and I will be talking about his book Canada: A Very Short Introduction , which is a book he published as part of Oxford University Press's Very Short Introduction series.
His research interests include Canadian political, intellectual, and cultural history. His first book, The Professionalization of History in English Canada, looks at the transition from amateur historians working outside the university in the nineteenth century to professional historians, with advanced degrees, working inside the university. His second book was a biography of Donald Creighton, English Canada’s leading historian. Working with two colleagues, he next published an edited volume called Symbols of Canada which includes essays on, among other symbols, the beaver, hockey, and maple syrup and how these symbols have been used and how they have changed over time. He is now working on a book about the Canadian historian Ramsay Cook, 1931-2016, although like everyone else, he has been slowed by the pandemic.
An award-winning teacher, Don teaches courses in Canadian and American history and in the politics of climate change.
When he isn’t at his desk or in the classroom, Don likes to trail run with his black lab named Bruce and listen to podcasts on history, politics, and climate change.
Bio:
https://www.unb.ca/faculty-staff/directory/arts-fr-political-science/wright-donald.html
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In this episode we discuss critical surf studies as a field of academic research, speak to the merit of surf-related experiential learning programs, and share highlights from our research into decolonizing sustainable surf tourism. We offer background into the critical ethnographic focus of our study abroad program, Surfing & Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica, explain our critique of the sustainable surf tourism-for-sustainable development paradigm, explore links between regenerative agriculture networks and surf tourism communities, and describe the political ecology of real estate as a conceptual frame for analyzing surfscape occupation. We end with a few ideas on how surfers can engage with critical surf studies concepts to support greater socio-ecological well being in the places we travel to surf.
Resources:
We’ve been helped in this work by recent revisions of the historiography of surfing – Scott Laderman’s Empire in Waves, Isaiah Walker’s Waves of Resistance, Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order, Kevin Dawson’s Undercurrents of Power, Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee and Alexander Sotelo Eastman’s The Critical Surf Studies Reader (including Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s chapter on Appropriating Surfing and the Politics of Indigenous Authenticity), and Allison Rose Jefferson’s Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.
Additional Resources:
Surfing and Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica • Summer | Anthropology (uga.edu)
Lost But Not Forgotten, virtual reality project on surfing history and coastal development in Long Beach, California - Lost But Not Forgotten VR TRAILER - YouTube. Bryce Leisy is in the Applied Anthropology MA program in the Department of Anthropology at Cal State Long Beach and is the Surf Coach for Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.
Bios:
Tara Ruttenberg is Ph.D. Candidate in Development Studies at the Wageningen School of Social Sciences, specializing in critical surf studies and alternatives to development in sustainable surf tourism. She is a member of the Institute for Women Surfers, hosts women’s surf retreats in Costa Rica, and writes stories and articles for alternative surf magazines and her personal website, Tarantula Surf. Tara’s current research includes decolonizing sustainable surf tourism, surfeminism as emancipatory politics in surfing culture, and a diverse economies approach to development alternatives in occupied Global South surfscapes.
Pete Brosius is Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia and Founding Director of UGA’s Center for Integrative Conservation Research. He is widely recognized for his work with Penan hunter-gatherers in Sarawak, Malaysia, and for his contributions to the development of Political Ecology. Throughout his career he has been engaged with issues of environmental degradation, indigenous rights and conservation. Brosius has been a surfer since 1969, and for the past ten years he has been the director of UGA’s Surfing & Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica study abroad program. His current research includes projects on the Tolak Reklamasi movement in Bali, Indonesia, and the political ecology of real estate in occupied surfscapes in the Global South.
Together, Pete and Tara run the study abroad program, Surfing and Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica, the first of its kind, now in its 10th year running. Their recent work critiquing sustainable surf tourism and proposing diverse economic alternatives to tourism development has been published in books including The Critical Surf Studies Reader (Duke University Press 2017), and The Ecolaboratory: Environmental Governance and Economic Development in Costa Rica (University of Arizona Press 2020). Their forthcoming research on localisms of resistance in occupied surfscapes is currently under review with Geoforum and a new critical surf studies collection edited by Lydia Heberling, David Kamper and Jess Ponting.
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Audio by TwistedLogix
In this episode we discuss different types of surf localism in the context of surfscape colonialism in the Global North and Global South, based on our recent work related to critical localisms of resistance in occupied surfscapes. We explore localisms of entitlement and resistance, as well as girl localisms in a range of well-known surfscapes to highlight the ways surfers are using localism as a means of both perpetuating and contesting the colonial, patriarchal and racialized neoliberal state of modern surfing and its surf tourism industrial complex.
Resources:
We’ve been helped in this work by recent revisions of the historiography of surfing – Scott Laderman’s Empire in Waves, Isaiah Walker’s Waves of Resistance, Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order, Kevin Dawson’s Undercurrents of Power, Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee and Alexander Sotelo Eastman’s The Critical Surf Studies Reader (including Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s chapter on Appropriating Surfing and the Politics of Indigenous Authenticity), and Allison Rose Jefferson’s Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.
Additional Resources:
Black Girls Surf: https://blackgirlssurf.org
Brown Girl Surf: https://www.browngirlsurf.com
The Wahine Project: https://www.thewahineproject.org
Native Like Water: https://www.nativelikewater.org
LatinX Surf Club: https://www.facebook.com/latinxsurfclub
Color the Water: https://www.colorthewater.org
Surfrider Los Angeles: https://la.surfrider.org
Bios:
Tara Ruttenberg is Ph.D. Candidate in Development Studies at the Wageningen School of Social Sciences, specializing in critical surf studies and alternatives to development in sustainable surf tourism. She is a member of the Institute for Women Surfers, hosts women’s surf retreats in Costa Rica, and writes stories and articles for alternative surf magazines and her personal website, Tarantula Surf. Tara’s current research includes decolonizing sustainable surf tourism, surfeminism as emancipatory politics in surfing culture, and a diverse economies approach to development alternatives in occupied Global South surfscapes.
Pete Brosius is Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia and Founding Director of UGA’s Center for Integrative Conservation Research. He is widely recognized for his work with Penan hunter-gatherers in Sarawak, Malaysia, and for his contributions to the development of Political Ecology. Throughout his career he has been engaged with issues of environmental degradation, indigenous rights and conservation. Brosius has been a surfer since 1969, and for the past ten years he has been the director of UGA’s Surfing & Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica study abroad program. His current research includes projects on the Tolak Reklamasi movement in Bali, Indonesia, and the political ecology of real estate in occupied surfscapes in the Global South.
Together, Pete and Tara run the study abroad program, Surfing and Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica, the first of its kind, now in its 10th year running. Their recent work critiquing sustainable surf tourism and proposing diverse economic alternatives to tourism development has been published in books including The Critical Surf Studies Reader (Duke University Press 2017), and The Ecolaboratory: Environmental Governance and Economic Development in Costa Rica (University of Arizona Press 2020). Their forthcoming research on localisms of resistance in occupied surfscapes is currently under review with Geoforum and a new critical surf studies collection edited by Lydia Heberling, David Kamper and Jess Ponting.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
Rob Koch, PhD, is a historian of Latin America and combat veteran whose research focuses on the geopolitics of Argentine Peronism and the notion of forming a 'Third Position' or 'Third Way' to bring about a post-imperial world order. His work also looks at the global proliferation of counterinsurgency during the Cold War, including the international spread of dirty war methods. In this episode, Cold War and Latin American historian, Dr. Rob Koch, talks about guerrilla movements and counterinsurgencies in Latin America, starting with the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
More articles by Dr. Rob Koch
https://usf.academia.edu/RobertDKoch
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
Rob Koch, Ph.D., is a historian of Latin America and combat veteran whose research focuses on the geopolitics of Argentine Peronism and the notion of forming a 'Third Position' or 'Third Way' to bring about a post-imperial world order. His work also looks at the global proliferation of counterinsurgency during the Cold War, including the international spread of dirty war methods. In this episode, Dr. Rob Koch talks about his research on Juan Perón, Fascism, and the Global Cold War.
More articles by Dr. Rob Koch:
https://usf.academia.edu/RobertDKoch
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
In this episode, I chat with my friend and colleague Frederique Carey about her research on Ireland’s surf culture and its links to identity formation through storytelling, something that draws from the country’s ancient bardic traditions, popular culture, and poetry.
Frederique Carey is a lecturer and a researcher at the University of Rennes 2, France, where she teaches courses in International Trade, Marketing and Management, as well as surf economics.
Her PhD research weaves together Celtic sea folklore and myths, anthropology, surf photography and film work analysis to offer an ethnographic study of surfing in Ireland as well as a mythopoetical interpretation of surf narratives and iconography and a market-oriented examination of the place of surfing in the Irish cultural and economic landscapes.
In association with Irish films production company Pockets Full of Water, she is currently working on a documentary series project that is supported by multidisciplinary academic research and structure. Her podcast series “Daoine na Mara – Tales from the Green Shores” was launched in March 2019; it is meant to be a platform for storing and sharing the stories she has collected from surfers along the coast of Ireland, and aims to root the development of a distinct Irish surflore.
Extra Resources
- Dark Side of the Lens (Mickey Smith, 2010): https://vimeo.com/14074949
- Tantrum (Pockets Full of Water, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLLHBSqsz2k
- Sneaky Peak (Pockets Full of Water, 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
- Art by Barry Britton: https://localhands.ie/member/barry-britton/
- Art by Aisling Gallagher Clarke: https://www.instagram.com/aiswing/
- Frederique Carey’s podcast, "Tales from the Green Shores": https://soundcloud.com/frederique-pnt
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Audio by TwistedLogix
For this episode, I talk with Dr. Kees Boterbloem, a history Professor at the University of South Florida, about his book, The Dirty Secret of Early Modern Capitalism. In it, Kees shows how the Dutch accumulation of great wealth was closely linked to their involvement in warfare. By charting Dutch activity across the globe, the book explores Dutch participation in the international arms trade, and in wars both at home and abroad. In doing so, Kees ponders the issue of how capitalism has often historically thrived best when its practitioners are ruthless and ignore the human cost of their search for riches.
Kees Boterbloem, Ph.D. is a history Professor at the University of South Florida where he teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, Dutch History, and Cultural, Social-Economic, and Military-Political History of European Empires.
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Tom Wilson, the Founder of Wave Changer, a Sydney, Australia-based nonprofit organization talks about his organization's vision to “create a carbon neutral, waste-free surf industry that's respectful to nature, yet retains the innovation, high performance and excitement we all expect from surfing.” In this episode, we also chat about Wave Changer’s mission to enable the surf community to embrace sustainable solutions and reduce its environmental impact and how Tom and his team are going about making this mission and vision a reality.
Environmental Initiatives and Consumer Behaviours in the Australian Surfing Industry
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Audio by TwistedLogix
Dr. Ana Manero and Dr. Javier Leon are researchers in geography and environmental management—and avid surfers as well. Combining sound scientific knowledge and a passion for surfing, Javier and Ana investigate the value of the Noosa area. In 2020, Noosa in south-east Queensland, Australia, was recognized as the 10th World Surfing Reserve by Save the Waves Coalition.
Surfing generates significant economic benefits for local communities across the world, but these benefits are often poorly understood by planners and policymakers.
This research—the first of its kind in Australia over the past 10 years—shows that direct expenditure related to surfing contributes to over A$180 million (Australian Dollars) to the local economy. Other value such as increased real estate prices derived from surfing demand are likely to add to the total benefit generated by surfing, thus warranting further research.
BBC Article: The Unexpected Benefits of Surfing
Dr. Ana Manero is a post-doc research fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, within the Australian National University. Ana’s area of research is on environmental management, with a strong focus on water governance and economics.
Dr. Javier León is a geographer with broad interests in geomorphology and geospatial analysis. He has particular interests in the study and management of coastal systems, especially in the current changing climate and sea-level rise context. He was born in Peru and currently lives and surfs around the points of Noosa in Australia.
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In this episode, Dr. Scott Laderman, professor of modern United States history at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, and I talk about his book, Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. Scott's book shows that “while wave riding is indeed capable of stimulating tremendous pleasure, its globalization went hand in hand with the blood and repression of the long twentieth century.” Additionally, Scott and I talk about an article he’s working on related to sexism and surfing culture, which Scott considers to be the “missing chapter” from Empire in Waves. While Empire in Waves was mainly a “male-centered” political surf history, his upcoming article looks the legacy of sexism in the sport of surfing in the United States, arguing that “surfing was sexist because American culture was sexist.”
Scott Laderman is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. His previous books include Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory (2009) and Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing (2014).
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In this episode, I interview conservationist Michael Blum about his love for studying pelicans along with his recent article he co-authored with Duke University professor, Mike Orbach, titled, "First Steps and First Point: Protecting California Surf Breaks, Maritime Heritage, and the Malibu Historic District." The paper surveys opportunities to protect surf breaks in California ("Could we do it?" "How would we do it?"), as well as describes subsequent work listing Los Angeles' famed Malibu surfing area on the National Register of Historic Places, the Nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation.
As a sport, surfing is an indelible part of California's character. Yet not the what of surfing, but the where surfing occurs—surf breaks and surfing areas—are authentic sites of culture, history, recreation, leisure, and activity. They are specific places worthy of community recognition, illumination, and protection.
We also talk about, of all things, pelicans dive bombing into the water for food. So come for a short surfing history of Malibu and why it matters, but stay for the pelicans.
Michael Blum is the Director of Sea of Clouds, an organization dedicated to protecting America's important coastal places.
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Dr. Lindsay Usher, associate professor of Park, Recreation and Tourism Studies, talks to me about her latest article titled, “Virginia and North Carolina Surfers’ Perceptions of Beach Nourishment.” Her research examines differences in attitudes towards beach nourishment across three regions of Virginia and North Carolina. She also discusses her most recent study conducted over 6 months in 2020, interviewing surfers around the world to learn more about how they were coping with beach closures, lockdowns and surfing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Lindsay Usher is an associate professor of Park, Recreation and Tourism Studies at Old Dominion University. Her research interests include surf culture and tourism, as well as resilience and sustainability in the coastal tourism industry.
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This is the trailer to The Surfing Historian podcast. In this trailer, I give you, the listener, the origin story and the impetus behind launching this podcast. Thanks for listening, and as always, stay stoked!
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Dr. Leon Mach, professor of environmental policy, joins me to talk about his most recent article that he co-authored with Jess Ponting, Ph.D., titled, "Establishing a pre-COVID-19 baseline for surf tourism: Trip expenditure and attitudes, behaviors and willingness to pay for sustainability." In this episode, we analyze surf tourism’s potential as a driver for sustainable development in costal communities during and after the Coronavirus pandemic.
Leon Mach is an Associate Professor in Environmental Policy and Socioeconomic Values, School for Field Studies, Center for Tropical Island Biodiversity Studies, Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Jess Ponting is an Associate Professor in sustainable tourism at San Diego State University’s L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and the founder and Director of the Center for Surf Research.
Together, they are also founders of the International Association for Surfing Researchers (IASR).
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Audio by TwistedLogix
Cultural historian, Charlie Harris, examines the changing place of the U.S. Navy in American popular culture during an age of massive overseas expansion at the turn of the 20th century. By examining industrial patterns, foreign relations, Gilded Age masculinity, and the rise of print and consumer culture, Charlie's work seeks to discover why American citizens began to support, or at least comply with, a more aggressive role for the United States on the world stage starting with the Spanish-American War in 1898. Charlie has also spent the last six years as a public historian at organizations like the American Victory Museum in Tampa, Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, and H-War, the military history arm of H-Net Online listserv history database.
Charlie Harris is a Doctoral Candidate in the University of South Florida History Department studying the United States military during the Gilded Age/Progressive Era.
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Cold War cultural historian, Michael Losasso, and I talk about the impact the Department of Defense and the military had on Hollywood, specifically as it relates to war-time advances made in media and film technology during WWII and later in the Cold War. We focus primarily on two movies in particular, The Endless Summer and Dr. Strangelove, two monumental films from the 1960s that were significant in their own right. Professor Losasso also talks about his doctoral dissertation that he’s titling, “The Big War on the Small Screen: Television, World War II, and the Cold War.” His research looks at how media production in the United States served to further fuel East/West Cold War anxieties between the US and Soviet Union. Michael Losasso is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of South Florida.
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Dr. Arwen Puteri, a historian of contemporary Europe, examines how West Germans constantly and consistently disrespected and delegitimized East-German culture and accomplishments in politics, the arts, and everyday life. She argues that the work of East Germans and their accomplishments were not evaluated based on their merit but rather on their East-German origin or East-German party affiliation. By recognizing the magnitude of this wide-ranging disrespect that is constantly and consistently manifested, Dr. Puteri provides a counter-narrative of the “Jammerossi” (the whining East German), as East Germans are often berated when complaining about the status quo.
Dr. Arwen Puteri has a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida.
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Dr. Aaron Lewis, a historian of the U.S. South, talks about his dissertation on the historical memories of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and the importance of studying the Confederacy and its role in perpetuating white supremacy throughout U.S. history. He also discusses how/why Confederate symbols are still present in the United States today and the way their meanings have changed throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr. Aaron Lewis has a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida. To read Dr. Lewis' dissertation, click here: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8463/
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