Alyssa Henderson

ANTH 1010
September 25, 2018
Ethnography Part 1

The sub-culture I decided on for my ethnography fieldwork this semester is skateboarding

culture in the United States. I chose this sub-culture for multiple reasons. The main reason is
because my serious boyfriend, Michael, is very passionate about skateboarding and spends a lot
of time on a board himself. He has been fascinated and in this specific sub-culture since he was
young. He is always expressing this passion to me and I wanted to really understand it. I find
myself having a hard time understanding or being as interested as him in the culture and I want
to put myself in his shoes. The danger aspect of skate boarding is what gets me. Falling into
concrete and getting serious injuries seems to just put me off, so I am curious to why it entices
others? Due to some of my immersion with the skate culture in Utah already, I know that there
is a focal language that comes with it and that I would also like to understand that. The amount
of passion and risk put into this sport fascinates me! I have always been exposed to what it
looks like as an outsider (dangerous, “cool”, and trendy) but I really want to understand the
people who are in the actual culture. I want to understand their desire, why they love the sport
so much and everything it means to them. With that, I have decided on four online literary
sources, with the help of some suggestions from Mike and just doing some of my own digging. I
also just watched a skateboarding movie that is based on a true story that I think might be a fun
source!

My first source is a thesis from the University of South Florida titled, Skate for Life: An
Analysis of the Skateboarding Subculture. I chose this thesis because it is analyzing the
skateboarding subculture just like I am going to do. It is a broad overview of what they found
the culture to be like and this can help me get prepared before diving in. My second source is an
ethnography study titled, An Ethnographic Study of the Skateboarding Culture. The style of this
journal article, I just reviewed in my sociology class, so I was familiar with the way it was
written. This article will help me to prepare for my ethnography fieldwork with seeing who else
has studied this, how they got permission, what strategies they used, what data they collected,
how they established rapport, who was their key informant, and what their field notes looked
like. My third source, Whoosh! Another Shoe Destroyed is a newspaper article in the New York
Times. I chose this one because unlike the other two broader articles, this one was unique and
gave a fun perspective to the culture while looking into their fashion. I found this article from a
works cited pages from other sources. Lastly, I thought this unique museum website gave good
information on the invention of skateboards and where they started. I just recently visited the
Smithsonian museums and thought this was a great source. I think it will add a great
perspective in diving deep into where the culture even began!

Works Cited

1. Slee, Thomas. Skate For Life: An Analysis of the Skateboarding Subculture. Master's thesis,
University of South Florida, 2011. Scholar Commons. 1-24. Accessed September 25, 2018.
https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1032&context=honors_et.
2. Moore, Linda. "An Ethnographic Study of the Skateboarding Culture." October 5, 2009. Accessed
September 25, 2018. http://thesportjournal.org/article/an-ethnographic-study-of-the-
skateboarding-culture/.
3. Porter, Justin. "Whoosh! Another Shoe Destroyed." The New York Times, New York ed.
September 24, 2008. Accessed September 25, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/fashion/25skates.html.
4. "Skateboards and Invention." Museum Conservation Institute Stain Removal. Accessed
September 25, 2018. https://www.si.edu/spotlight/skateboards.
5. Lords of Dogtown. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. By Stacy Peralta. Performed by Heath
Ledger, Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk. 2005. DVD.