Working for a Sustainable Surfing Community: Becoming a Local Surfer at a New Home Destination

Hanbeom Kim,Sun-Yong Kwon

doi:10.3390/su12176865

Abstract

South Korea used to be a non-surfing region until it experienced a remarkable realization of the surfing phenomenon, the so-called “surfing boom”, during the past couple of decades. The nonexistence of surfing communities or cultures offers a unique context that surfers have to deal with to become local surfers. The migration status of surfers further complicates the process of local surfer identity construction. This particular context provided migrant surfers with unique socio-spatial challenges and tasks that led them to a certain desire for sustainable surfing milieu. This paper aims to explore the experiences of early migrant surfers when constructing their local surfer identity. Data were collected through fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and document analysis. The early migrant surfers perceived becoming local surfers to be a process of making a new life while they were settling on their new “home”. Thus, they desired a sustainable surfing environment not only with the surf breaks but also with the whole regional community they live in. Hence, becoming a local surfer was becoming a local villager at the same time. They put forth multilateral community endeavors to construct and maintain social and emotional bonds with local authorities, local native residents, and the community environment. Through their interactions with the wider rural community, it was hoped that they would also actually contribute to the formation and maintenance of that rural community for sustainable surfing.

Highlights

The global popularity of surfing has increased substantially over the past half-century
Throughout the negotiation process, as they settled in their new home, they actively developed a sense of local surfer identity perceiving surfing as a fundamental aspect of their lives beyond a simple individual lifestyle pursuit
The fact that a person has become a local surfer means that he/she was born in the relevant community or lived in a region that belongs to a certain beach or coastline area for a certain period of time

Summary

Introduction

The global popularity of surfing has increased substantially over the past half-century. While South Korea was identified as a non-surfing country, the new exotic lifestyle culture, surfing, has witnessed a rapidly increasing national popularity during the recent two decades. It is generally agreed among the first-generation South Korean surfers that the process for South Koreans to first access and experience surfing at South Korean beaches began sometime between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. While the overall surfing history in South Korea covers the last 20 years, it is estimated that the surfer population—those who possess their own surfboards—was around only 100 or 150 by the mid-2000s This number grew to around 1000 during the last half of the 2000s and to around 3000 at its maximum in 2017. This so-called South Korea’s surfing boom is worthy of academic attention to fill the blanks in relevant scholarly research

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