Ethno-aesthetics of Surf in Florida discusses surf and music as glocal
sociocultural constructs. Focusing on Florida's unexplored surfing
culture, the book illustrates how musical experience begets
representations about the world that highlight ways of acting and being
of various sociocultural communities. Based on the conceptualization of
ethno-aesthetics, this ethnographic study provides an analysis of the
Space Coast surfers community's collaborative effort to build social
cohesion through their musicking. This transdisciplinary research in
American Studies draws upon various theoretical perspectives from both
the humanities and social sciences, including ethnomusicology, social
psychology, and sociolinguistics, to propose new ways of exploring the
links between surfing and musicking. This monograph looks past the myth
of iconic 1960s Californian surf music to show how, as a result of the
glocalization of surfing, the musicking of Floridian surfers has allowed
them to express their subjectivities and to make sense of their world.
This book contributes to the debate on the disputed notions of identity
and representations by establishing connections between a local
expression of the surf lifestyle and its music. It proposes theoretical
models that explain cultural hybridization, appropriation, and belonging
in surfing. It also develops concepts and notions, such as
surfanization, surf strand, lifestyle crossover, and identity marking,
to illustrate how global practices, such as surfing, are endowed with
various modes of expression exemplified by the emergence of unique
regional subcultures of surfing.
