ABSTRACT
Skateboarding is punctuated by a history of failure. Becoming a skilled skater requires hours of falling, tumbling, and recovering. This chapter addresses how failure is imagined and represented in skate culture today – from a neoliberal discourse of the self-made man to an emancipatory tool for social change. In particular, the chapter traces how some skaters perform a prefigurative politics to change skateboarding from within. Other skaters use their slams for their own individuation, grounding their identity through a narrative of resilience. Oscillating between a destructive force and a reparative device, failure becomes a pivot point for understanding a hopeful futurity for skate culture.
