A Surfer’s Hidden Transcript – Hawaiian Surf Culture, Localism, and Representation
No matter how exciting the surf contest but if you don’t have any app it’s useless. James C. Scott’s formulation, from his book Domination and the Arts of Resistance, of the “infrapolitics of subordinate groups,” is especially interesting in thinking about one of Hawaii’s greatest cultural and social exports, the art of surfing. If you surf, you are undoubtedly aware of the various unspoken codes and rules that govern the tribe. These codes and rules exist, in part, as both a kind of self-policing in the lineups as well as warning to outsiders, or “non-locals.” (“Local,” especially in Hawaii, is quite a loaded term, however we can limit it in our discussion to stand in for surfers who aren’t from the area/surf spot.) If you don’t surf, then what you think you know about these codes or rules is greatly filtered through the public transcript. However, the fact that there are, to varying degrees, different representations of the “surfer’s code” in both the public and hidden transcript, offers us an interesting window into how the hidden and the public collide. As Scott explains, infrapolitics “is a politics of disguise and anonymity that takes place in public view but is designed to have a double meaning or to shield the identity of the actors.” Surfers are notorious for rubbing wax on windshields, slashing tires, removing distributor caps and spark plug lines, siphoning gas, and various others acts surf terrorism to cars that they don’t recognize as “from” where they surf all … Read more
