Are Risk and Injury Integral to the Experience of Skateboarding?

Abstract

Based on observations, and on group and individual interviews with fifteen young men in Halifax, Nova Scotia, this qualitative study investigates the experiences and subculture of skateboarders, exploring their perceptions of risk and injury in the sport. Skateboarders enter a subculture with distinctive norms and values. The subcultural identity includes adherence to an unwritten code of conduct in which disdain for authority co-exists with respect for skill and style, mutual encouragement, and absence of overt competition. Skateboarders do not appear to be reckless risk-takers; rather they demonstrate commitment and self-discipline, seeking physical and psychological self-mastery through careful calculation of ability and risk, employing strategies of injury prevention that include step-wise skill progression and knowing how to fall. Injury is unavoidable if the skateboarder is to master the sport. In the context of the norms and values of this sport, widespread use of protective gear is unlikely. Injury prevention might better attend to the naturalistic strategies skateboarders already employ.