Polluted Leisure Enskilment: Skateboarding as Ecosophy

Abstract

Pollution makes some leisure activities not only possible but pleasurable, an analysis known as “polluted leisure.” In this paper, I extend this analysis with case examples of leisure participants adept use of polluted spaces. This adept use suggests that some leisure participants are “enskiled” at polluted leisure, possessing an embodied ecological familiarity with polluted spaces similar to a sailor who has a real knack for getting their sea legs. I present a case example of skateboarders building formal and informal skateparks on remediated Superfund sites and brownfields to further encourage this notion of polluted leisure enskilment. I then develop this notion of polluted leisure enskilment using Guattari’s “ecosophy,” a way of being most suitable for our Anthropocene age, claiming that skateboarding’s esthetic enmeshed in polluted space offers a lived ecosophy. I conclude with potential extensions of this research in leisure studies, spatial justice, and skate studies.