New book: Skateboard Video, Archiving the City from Below By...
New book: Skateboard Video, Archiving the City from Below By Duncan McDuie-Ra
It’s always a cause for celebration when a new academic tome on skateboarding arrives. Released now on the Palgrave site is the new title ‘Skateboard Video: Archiving the City from Below’. There are several reasons why I am enthusiastic about this latest edition. Firstly it is the second book on skateboarding McDuie-Ra has released this year and provides a strong compliment to his other work ‘Skateboarding and Urban Landscapes in Asia’. Secondly, this book contributes to two areas of skateboarding scholarship where we have long needed more discussion; Video and Asia.
I was fortunate enough to get a peek of this book in advance of its release so I share below my blurb from the back cover as it sums up my response succinctly.
“In this engaging and provocative work McDuie-Ra’s metaphor is powerful; here is a culture that documents itself ‘from below’. By adopting the video camera as a ritual item, skateboarders have created an informal archive of urban life and social change. In studying these videos, the author invites us to become intimately familiar with the overlooked corners of cities across the globe, presenting an informal index of development and austerity, and an extraordinary resource for academic study. This clear and accessible voice questions the central tenets of skateboard culture, showing that through video, skateboarders can be responsible delinquents, and inclusive elitists who cherish and honour their history. A remarkable text that urges the reader to reconsider the ways we archive urbanism, occupy space, and think of race.” (Paul O’Connor, author of Skateboarding and Religion)
At a tangent, the arrival of new research on skateboarding is something I have no resistance in celebrating. This summer saw another important release, that of Kyle Beachy’ s ‘The Most Fun Thing’, which alike its subject matter is ineffable; not neatly fitting categorisation or description. Also Sander Hölsgens released ‘Skateboarding in Seoul’ earlier this year. There are also new works touching on skateboarding from Becky Beal and Tyler Dupont ‘Lifestyle Sports and Identities Subcultural Careers Through the Life Course’ released 30th of September and ‘Action Sports and the Olympic Games Past, Present, Future’ coming in November from Holly Thorpe and Belinda Wheaton. However, a few recent murmurs I have gathered seem to be sustaining an ongoing schism between ‘shut up and skate’ and ‘ponder and skate’. Just a week ago a post on #skatetwitter begged for no more theses on skateboarding. Perhaps this is not the best measure of public opinion. Yet, the critique of skateboarding intellectual reflection outpaces the resistance to a new video, company, magazine, photo series etc. If anything my concern is not with the number of academic, intellectual, and research focussed works on skateboarding but simply their inaccessibility. Too often paywalled at ridiculous cost, poorly promoted, and pitched at people who are the least likely to benefit from them.
McDuie Ra’s book(s), and for that measure the recent research I see from grad students and other colleagues alike, all point to the fact that there continues to be much to explore in skateboarding scholarship. This should not be surprising for such a rich and diverse culture. Simply put, there is much more to come.
