‘You’re only falling into water!’: exploring surfers’ understandings of concussion in Canadian surf culture

ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, a growing body of research has explored the linkages between sport and sport-related concussion (SRC). However, collectively, these studies have primarily focused on three commonalities: team sport, contact sport and mainstream sport, all the while ignoring the participants of individualised, non-contact, alternative sports such as surfing. Noting this gap within the existing literature, this qualitative, interview-driven study critically explored how twelve (n = 12), experienced surfers from the West Coast of Canada came to perceive, give meaning towards and manage sport-related concussion within the ethos of Canadian surfing subculture. The findings demonstrated that surfers expressed mixed and ambiguous understandings of and attitudes towards sport-related concussion. These, we argued, fuelled their headstrong attitudes and embodiments towards sport-related concussion. In addition, the findings revealed that both male and female surfers were willing to push through their concussive injuries as a way of showing one’s commitment to the surfing subculture and found that surfers would return-to-surf following an SRC for three primary reasons 1) the wave conditions, 2) limited amount of time to surf and 3) pressures from others in the water. The findings from this study have the potential to inform surfers, surf instructors and surf organisations about the topic of sport-related concussion in surfing and importantly about the topic of head-related safety in surfing.

KEYWORDS:

• Concussion
• surfing
• injury
• gender
• risk

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Larger waves are produced in the winter months in Canada, but this is not universally true depending on the location.

2. Although there appears to be a large discrepancy between these projected SRC rates, we have to be reminded that oftentimes athletes (of all sports) are unaware that they have sustained an SRC due to the asymptomatic nature of the injury. Due to the lack thereof apparent or visible symptoms, one may fail to recognise that they are in fact concussed and will subsequently not report the injury (King et al. 2014). However, despite these rather large discrepancies, what these numbers do (more accurately) suggest is that SRC in surfing appears to be occurring at rates similar to, if not surpassing rates in other sporting contexts.

3. When it came to communicating both surf and head-related safety in Canadian West Coast surf culture, surf instructors seemed to hold onto powerful subcultural positions; however, we also acknowledge that this may not be true universally, as surf instructor’s roles may vary from surf-context to context. In fact, in many cases, surf instructors may remain absent within surfing spaces; thus, placing the responsibility of surf-related safety and/or concussion-related knowledge either upon the surfer themselves or onto nearby friends, family, and observers in the case of a suspected concussive injury.

4. For example, in New Zealand, the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is a Crown entity responsible for administering universal no-fault accidental injury schemes. The scheme covers physical and mental injuries and also covers TBI such as concussion. By reporting injuries to this governing body, individuals are subject to subsidised health care and medical services (ACC 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nikolaus A Dean

Nikolaus A Dean is a PhD student in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia. Nikolaus’s research interests lie in areas related to youth, subcultures, risk, action sport research, qualitative methods, and sport and leisure studies.

Andrea Bundon

Andrea Bundon is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her work, which spans the fields of sport sociology and critical disability studies, uses qualitative methodologies to explore the intersections of sport, impairment, risk and disability. She has published in leading international journals and is the editor of Digital Qualitative Research in Sport and Physical Activity (Routledge 2018) and has contributed chapters in the Routledge International Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Sport and Exercise,the Palgrave Handbook of Paralympic Studies and the Palgrave Handbook of Feminisms in Sport, Leisure and Physical Education.