Creating Our Own Lineup

Abstract

Women’s participation in surfing has grown significantly in the past decade, yet few surfing studies include women’s perspectives. Using the communication theory of identity (CTI), I examine how surfing women in one community develop, enact, and negotiate their identities in this traditionally male lifestyle sport. Findings show that surfing women bring a more social, complementary style to the surfing lineup, while also identifying as serious surfers who are manifesting their own athletic abilities and relationships with the waves. Through participant observation and interviewing, I discuss how women create spaces in which to enact their gendered identities, how relationships with other surfing women strengthen these identities, and the strategies women enact to reduce discrepancies between erroneous portrayals and their own self-concepts. While CTI has mainly been used to study cross-cultural identities, this study expands its use to a sporting subculture while also adding to a body of surfing research that has largely excluded women.

Making Sweet Music Together: The Affordances of Networked Media for Building Performance Capital by YouTube Musicians

“…Our case study shows that successful You-Tube cover musicians create online performance capital through several strategies such as linking to a variety of other videos. While these practices have some commonalities with the offline performance capital noted by Miller (2017) and the sport social capital as noted by Bush (2016), notably, the affordances of YouTube seem to encourage practices that take advantage of online social network connectivity.…”

“…Here, an additional concept is instructive: performance capital, which is a special type of resource in which performances for various publics are used to increase either or both of social and cultural capital (Davis & Seymour, 2010;Miller, 2017). While performance capital has been used to refer to a variety of public figures who engage in different types of performance, including politicians (Davis & Seymour, 2010) and athletes (Bush, 2016;Thorpe, 2014), Miller (2017Miller ( , 2018 provides a definition of performance capital to help understand how musicians form community and choose to work with one another. For Miller, performance capital is a special subtype of embodied social and cultural capital that encompasses both the instrumental habitus and the interpersonal skills necessary to perform music with others within the conventions of a certain genre of music (or field).…”

“…While music channels were more likely to link to other music channels and non-music channels were more likely to link to non-music channels, we were surprised to find that the most popular channels posted videos from a wide variety of categories. Outside of social media, it would be unusual to see a performer build performance capital through deepening their skills, knowledge, and social connections outside of their genre community, which is also a field (Bush, 2016;Miller, 2017). However, our You-Tube musicians were posting non-music related videos and building links with YouTubers outside the music community, thus while YouTube musicians can be thought of as a sub field (in a Bourdieu-ian sense) of music broadly, YouTube musicians must also be considered as a sub field of YouTube producers more broadly.…”

“…For example, if someone is rich in social capital, they may be able to use their wide network of social connections to increase their economic or cultural capital. Building on the concepts of social, cultural, and economic capital, scholars who study individuals with performance-based careers (e.g., politicians, athletes, or musicians) have noted a subtype of social and cultural capital unique to performers called performance capital (Bush, 2016; Davis & Seymour, 2010). Performance capital includes social and cultural capitals within specific genre, sport, or sectoral conventions, and importantly also include the need to perform cultural and social capital for a large and often public audience (Bush, 2016; Miller, 2017).…”

“…Building on the concepts of social, cultural, and economic capital, scholars who study individuals with performance-based careers (e.g., politicians, athletes, or musicians) have noted a subtype of social and cultural capital unique to performers called performance capital (Bush, 2016; Davis & Seymour, 2010). Performance capital includes social and cultural capitals within specific genre, sport, or sectoral conventions, and importantly also include the need to perform cultural and social capital for a large and often public audience (Bush, 2016; Miller, 2017). Notably, there is little literature on performance capital in an online environment, even though many performers now grow their audience using social media platforms like YouTube (Baym, 2018).…”