‘It's the sea and the beach more than anything for me’: Local surfer's and the construction of community and communitas in a rural Cornish seaside village

Emily Beaumont*, David Brown

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper reports on a qualitative ethnographic study undertaken on a small rural village community in Cornwall, UK with a significant population of local surfers. It focuses on these local surfers' interactions with the wider rural community they co-exist with, and in which ways this group might contribute to the formation, maintenance and identity of that broader rural community. The analysis presented draws together a range of broadly agreed conceptual notions of community with Victor Turner's (1969) notion of spontaneous, normative and ideological communitas as dynamic emergent elements in what Whol (2015) refers to as a process of developing community sense through experiencing and communicating aesthetic judgments. Findings illustrate that notions of community were not restricted to a static and bounded geographical location. Rather, the village focused upon in this study was seen as a hub of a close and a wider de-territorialised community. Despite their obvious differences, there was a strong sense of communitas, community sense and aesthetic judgement between surfing locals and non-surfing locals, expressed through the sharing of experience of the inspired feelings of native place configured around relationships with the sea, the local beach, surf break and village life.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)58-66
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Rural Studies
Volume59
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Feb 2018

Keywords

  • Aesthetic judgment
  • Communitas
  • Community
  • De-territorialisation
  • Ethnography
  • Rural
  • Surfing

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