The origins of localism
What is surf localism? The hot local is a native or local inhabitant who, faced with an increasing number of surfers, develops a protectionist “parochial” attitude. Few sports generate this type of behavior, which is generally found in “terroir” activities, where individuals compete against each other in a particular area for mushroom picking, hunting or fishing.
However, surfing is far from being a “terroir” activity, just as seaside activities as a whole are a contemporary phenomenon. After arriving in France in the 1950s, surfing remained a marginal sport until the 1980s and 90s.
By way of comparison, this discipline existed in Hawaii long before 1778. To this day, the Polynesian peoples have maintained a symbiotic relationship with the ocean, a culture that the Christian colonizer had stifled for several centuries. Until, at the beginning of the 20th century, a group of marginalized Americans, nicknamed “the beach bums”, rediscovered surfing, and the discipline was revived and spread worldwide: in the USA, Australia, Brazil and Peru, where surfing also existed long before the French.
Like the wave it rides, this sport rides on cultural trends from elsewhere. In France, surf wear companies and specialized media have revisited the history of French surfing by transposing its Californian model. The result is a powerful acculturation phenomenon that shapes the way surfers see the sport. Surfing thus became a marvellous catch-all designed to sell the dream, and to this day, it still includes :
- the beat-generation counterculture;
- the mystified figure of the Tontons Surfeurs of Biarritz, no matter that their social origins have nothing to do with the Californian beach bump; surfers are cool, it’s in their genes;
- the alternative lifestyle of the travelling surfer, while the first French surfers travelled very little, living their passion on the bangs of their normal work and family life;
- sociologist Guillaume Guibert explains how, in the early days of surfing in France, the specialized press, having little to offer, drew on its American models to create a mythology of French surfing;
- in complete contradiction with the concept of freedom and freedom from the shackles of the surfer, the competitive surfer, magnified by brands and surf magazines;
- the roots and competitive aspects of surfing reconciled in the sumptuous parties that follow the World Surfing Championship stage calendar;
- a certain apology for partying, beer and recreational drugs;
- the rejection of commercial values, which does not prevent unbridled consumerism of everything related to the world of surfing, technical equipment, clothing, merchandising..;
- the coolness of surfing, a sport and art of living, an unparalleled vector of economic development on coasts all over the world, is becoming the sport of bourgeoisies at war with surfers who sleep in their trucks;
- surfing feeds on its own contradictions;
the mother nations of surfing, Hawaii, USA and Australia, inspire surfers the world over; - the concept of the surfing tribe is crumbling in the face of the multitude of groups of individuals with varied profiles;
- surfing companies that endlessly rehash the 1970s through marketing products from that era, such as the Single Fin board;
- urban culture enters the spectrum of aerial surfing techniques, directly inspired by skateboarding;
- the spirit of surfing, which doesn’t prevent the manufacture of shoddy t-shirts in factories outsourced to China and Bangladesh, or the violence of the famous Black Shorts.
Hawaii is THE mother nation of surfing, and this tends to legitimize everything that’s done there: surfing was the discipline of the Hawaiian kings, so we could interpret the localism here as revenge against colonialism and the violence it engendered. However, this candid vision doesn’t stand up to certain facts: the surfing revival was driven by the American presence. In fact, the Black Shorts club, founded in 1976, counts among its founding members a non-native American who arrived in Hawaii late in life when he was a teenager. The famous shorts were donated by the Quicksilver company, no doubt to buy the right of access to the spot for sporting competitions organized by a not-so-independent surfing federation.
Nevertheless, this extreme localism responds to extreme conditions: powerful waves saturated with people, and therefore doubly dangerous. When surf brands make a spot a stage for prestigious surfing championships or the subject of films, a stretch of coast becomes popular overnight, and surfers from all over the world flock to it as if to strike gold. This is what happened to the North Shore. Wouldn’t the Hawaiians have been swept away by the hordes of Australians, Hawaiians, Americans and Brazilians, often of the highest calibre? The question remains open.
