ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the significance of relationships in the context of British surfing spaces, and focuses specifically on the dynamics of surfing friendships. It offers an analysis that is equally as embodied and emotionally engaged. The chapter presents the various ways in which female friendships are co-supportive, and also focuses specifically on some of the more affective experiences that bond together women who surf. It outlines some of the ways in which surfing and friendship affectively intertwine for the participants in research. The chapter also offers an involved, felt and reflexive appreciation of how friendships emerge through surfing/research. It argues that exploring surf friendships from the perspectives of both participant and researcher offers a mutually open analysis akin to the dynamics of friendship itself. The chapter then suggests that the adverse surf conditions in Brighton provide a particular and powerful intertwining of space, place and subjectivities that functions to bond together the women who surf there.