Skateboarding as Social and Environmental Praxis: Navigating a Sustainable Future

Abstract

Young people's political agency manifests in ways that are different from adults and that agency is typified by different spatial, mobile, and place-based dynamics. Varied expressions of political agency among young people exist, among them those responding to pressing global challenges that implicate social justice, climate change, and urbanization. Transport is one of the sectors of social and spatial life both deeply affected by and strongly influencing these particular challenges. Among some young people, several responses exist in relation to the perennial questions about how to be mobile: walk, cycle, blade, skate, practice parkour, catch public transport, drive cars, or use combinations of these modes. For some, other supports such as wheelchairs are used. This paper focuses on one of these: skateboarding. The claim that is examined here is whether, how, to what extent, and with what effects skateboarding can be (and be seen to be) both social and environmental praxis. Consideration is given to how to comprehend skateboarding as a means to mitigate and adapt to climate change, to be mobile, to claim a place in public spaces, and to strike a balance between consuming and producing wisely. What might skateboarding as social and environmental praxis reveal about youthful politics, agency, political rights, and protection, and what new insights might emerge from these reflections?