Territorial disputes, identity conflicts, and violence in surfing

Abstract

Aggressive manifestations of localism are a current concern among surfers and are becoming well known as a result of specialized media. The objective of this paper was to investigate this phenomenon through the examination of a specific case and empirical fieldwork that was conducted for an ethnography of São Paulo surfers. The data were obtained via participant observations and open interviews. The results indicate that conflicts generally begin as disputes over the best waves. Surfing has a general rule of "wave priority criteria," based on spatial positioning. However, this universal rule may be intentionally broken depending on surfers' sociability. Ethnic and class differences based on historical processes can exist in oppositional relationships among surfers and are manifested by categories of accusation or identity (in São Paulo's case, local, haole, roots, prego, and playboy). However, this category attribution is contextual and interchangeable because surfers circulate between groups and beaches while searching for waves.