Surf’s Up: Facing the slow cancellation of nature

Preprint, 2023

This chapter will suggest that surfing culture is not simply one that cherishes authentic nature – equally, it can be understood as a culture that has long grappled with “the slow cancellation” of this very concept of nature. Behind the stoked surfer in awe of capital-N Nature, there is a double who senses the loss of this authentic nature, yet struggles to explicate this unease. This somewhat more melancholic sentiment can be placed in alignment with a conceptualization of the environment that signifies a utopian letting-go of nature-as-we-knew it. This, in turn, is broadly in line with the Deleuzo-Guattarian imperative to create a new earth.