Indigo Willing’s research while affiliated with Griffith University and other places

Call for Papers ‘The Leisure of Grey Spaces, Urban Play and the Chromatic Turn’ Leisure Studies

This article explores ageing in alternative cultures and co-existing forms of hyper and alternative masculinity in the US film Jackass Forever released in 2022. The film is a continuation of the original Jackass show launched in 2000. Although a highly profitable franchise, we argue Jackass is part of an alternative culture through its playfulness and pranks that are also dangerous and revel in self-humiliation. Most of the stunts and skits also adopt a DIY approach and reflect forms of perceived masculine and adolescent pranking and clowning. We argue that such alternative and DIY-influenced activities allow men to keep enjoying alternative, ‘carnivalesque’ forms of adult play well into middle-age and can have a pro-social and beneficial impact across men's life course. Yet even if subversive, Jackass can still also reproduce masculine constraints, including suppressing the expression of boundaries and vulnerable emotions.

This chapter offers a brief history of skateboarding in the US, with its evolving social dynamics and key flashpoints of change through four main themes: (1) the California scene and the emergence of the skate industry, (2) from underground subculture to scene with market power, (3) expanding, transgressive and progressive horizons in skateboarding, and (4) further mainstreaming and a continuing culture of resistance. We discuss how skateboarding culture has moments of being progressive, but it can also be problematic and not necessarily on a linear journey to equity. Our overview also emphasizes that power dynamics in skateboarding are not always static and are open to being challenged and changed by those involved at all levels of skill, industry, and community involvement.KeywordsSkateboarding historySkate industryPower relationsNon-traditional skateboarders

This chapter explores the critical reflections skateboarders have on trying to effect social change, the strategies they adopt, the degrees of progress they accomplish, and how they envisage power can be attained and shared. Our discussion unfolds in three parts: (1) “De-centering Established Power,” (3) “Change-Making in Media, Creative Landscapes, and Knowledge,” and (3) “Ethical Togetherness at the Micro and Macro Levels.” Rather than being exclusive to skateboarding culture, the social issues the interviewees grapple with are seen as intertwined with wider society. This includes colonialism, racism, and discrimination based on gender and sexuality. As such, their insights on challenging structural inequality offer useful guides for not just skateboarding but also other youth cultures, subcultures, lifestyle and mainstream sports, and beyond.KeywordsDecolonizingAnti-racismSkateboarding industrySkateboarding activismSkate media

In this chapter, we conclude our exploration of skateboarding, power, and change with some final reflections on the implications and significance of this research, as well as offering recommendations for future research. Our discussion is presented within the following themes and sections: 1) Key Findings and Contributions to the Research Field, 2) Limitations, Significance, and Future Recommendations, and 3) Some Final Thoughts: Skateboarding Now and Where to Next. We propose that skateboarding is something that is always shifting and consists of a journey everyone needs to keep working on to ensure power is shared. We also propose that equity can be better achieved through things such as inclusion and representation, funding and other resources, and an open attitude to sharing knowledge is crucial.KeywordsEthical skateboardingSkate activismEquityInclusionRadical empathySociology

In this chapter, we introduce the “change-makers” we interviewed for this book. Our discussion is presented through the following themes: (1) Icons of Change in Sport and Counterparts in Skateboarding, (2) Change-Makers as Cultural Beacons and Guides, (3) Icons, Iconoclasts, and Breakthrough Figures, (4) Strategists and Community Builders, and (5) Storytellers, Creatives, and Provocateurs. We use various typologies as heuristic devices, rather than proposing they are static or mutually exclusive, as many skateboarders, we interviewed fit within and across these categories. We propose that there is no singular personality type but rather a range of people, from different backgrounds, demographics, and experiences, who can challenge power and bring about social change.KeywordsSports activismAthlete activismSkateboarding activismChange-makersSocial change

In this chapter we look at the formative experiences of the individuals we spoke with. The discussion is presented through four main themes: (1) Defiance Labor and Flexible Forms of reflexivity, (2) Becoming a “Skateboarder” and Early Social Barriers, (3) Internalizing Negative Attitudes, (4) Joy, Gratitude, Tenacity, and Resistance, and (5) Radical Empathy, Everyday Cosmopolitanism, and an Ethics of Sharing. We argue attention to their journey opens up a better understanding of what has shaped their commitment to being inclusive. Insights from the interviews reveal how a shared love of skateboarding, an ability to feel empathy, an outlook of openness, and an orientation of sharing rather than possessing skating are important foundations in their lives and effort to bring about social change.KeywordsSkateboardingSubcultural capitalReflexivityEmotional laborRadical empathyCosmopolitanism

Skateboarders and scholars recognize skateboarding is invested with flexible meanings and has the overlapping status of being a subculture, and a lifestyle, action, and competitive sport. Our discussion is presented in four themes: 1) The Sociology of Skateboarding, 2) Skateboarding Researchers as “Insiders” in the Culture, 3) Methodological Considerations and Processes During a Pandemic, and 4) Chapter Summaries. We turn attention away from negative stereotypes and labelling and argue there is a boom in “change-makers” in skateboarding who are pushing for positive social change. We outline how our study addresses a need for more in-depth knowledge of what kinds of people are involved, the values they hold, challenges they face, strategies they roll out, and advice they offer for now and in the future.KeywordsSkate cultureSkate activismSubcultural capitalSports sociologySkateboarding researchSkateboarders

This chapter explores various advice and insights skateboarders share as important to keep up the momentum in their efforts to bring social change to skateboarding. In doing so, they provide roadmaps and an inclusive picture of a future that skateboarding can achieve. Our exploration is discussed through three main themes: (1) Door Opening and Thinking Forward, (2) Critical Self-Reflection, and Self-Care, and (3) Recipes for Skateboarding in the Future. Our aim in presenting these insights is not to be forcefully prescriptive or deterministic, but rather, to offer an antidote to apathy and complicity by sharing pathways, and an expanded sense of possibility.KeywordsSkateboardersInclusive skateboardingSelf-careSelf-reflectionEquity