Tag: Kristin Lawler

Edited by Michael Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline, Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (SDSU Press) takes the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. We asked historian Matthew L. McDowell for a review. He found an “intriguing collection” combatting an ingrained cultural stereotype of skateboarders and surfers as uncaring and apolitical, a book likely to serve as a reference point in the field for years to come.

In Surfing and Modernity in the North of Scotland (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), Matthew McDowell discusses the existence and evolution of surfing in the north of Scotland. But this is also a history of the region itself, examining the possibilities and limits of surfing, sport, and other activities. In her review, sociology professor and surf scholar Kristin Lawler notes that the author is not himself a surfer and thus will not let us know how it feels to surf a reef break like Thurso, but his classic community study in sociology fills a massive gap in the surf literature concerning Scotland.

Academics in various disciplines are writing about sport. Sport in Society is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary forum for academics to discuss the growing relationship of sport to significant areas of modern life. The Forum Editor’s pick from the current issue: Skateboarding and contested public space in Portrush, Northern Ireland: exploring tensions between resortification and DIY space-claiming through co-creative methodology by Jim Donaghey & Slaine Browne (open access).