Surfer Girls in the New World Order

Abstract

Critical Localisms in a Globalized WorldIn the fall of 2002-hurricane season-I left Houston for a research trip to Sayulita, Mexico, a fishing village turned surf town on the Pacific coastline, north of Puerto Vallarta.Sayulita's beach is modest by Mexican resort standards: it's rocky in patches, the sand a grainy gray.The northern point remains an active fishing venture with small boats pushing off and returning to shore, leaving gasoline rainbows trailing behind in the water.In fact, Sayulita is not a resort.It's an internationalist surf town, and at its center is a single surf spot, a consistent and clean reef-breaking wave that gamey beginners will more or less be able to manage.I wanted to go to Sayulita to study a women's surf camp, Las Olas, specifically to study transnational athletic play (fig.1).Las Olas is owned by an American woman surfer from northern California and has been in operation since 1997.At the time I visited, travel and sport media were just beginning to widely profile it as "the world's premier surf safari for women," or "the Golden Door of surfing camps."1To use the word camp to describe the environment in which women learn to surf in Sayulita is a bit like calling teatime in Meryl Streep's away-tent in Out of Africa a form of wilderness refreshment.One weighs the distant roar of lions against the sterling tea service.Las Olas headquarters are housed in "la Casita," a small bricked building distinguished by a mural of a woman in the curl of a wave.This is where classes are held and where surfboards and other gear are stored.The building sports a single bathroom, a private room for massage, a gravity shower rigged via PvC pipe, and a small kitchen.Exiting the headquarters one finds the amenities of town: some shops, a few one-story inns with rooms opening onto courtyards, and restaurants serving tequila, ginger shakes,

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