Conceptualising grey spaces in skateboarding: Generating theory and method for use beyond the board

Abstract

This conceptual paper elaborates on the paradigm of ‘grey spaces’ in skateboarding. It presents the fundamentals of the grey spaces concept as a bond between the material and symbolic and provides three core arguments. Firstly, it suggests that the simplicity of the concept works to make the complexity of skateboarding accessible. In doing so it opens the opportunity to bond elements of research on skateboarding to other lifestyle and action sports, and more broadly to a variety of disparate scholarly realms. Secondly, it identifies a nascent movement in skateboard studies to craft and adopt bespoke methodologies that speak to the specificities of skateboarding as a social, sensual and urban act. Thirdly, it proposes some possible frames by which grey spaces can be adopted to theorise elements of skateboarding and make conceptual bridging beyond the niche frame of the sport, and lifestyle/action sports more generally. These frames relate to pollution, active ageing, sport for development and peace, and identity. In conclusion, grey spaces are advocated as a paradigm to encourage scholars of skateboarding and beyond to connect and communicate through a shared frame. It also advocates for plurality and has a political component that suggests that even though there may be something unique in skateboarding, it can be known, communicated, understood, and even applied in other contexts.