Skateboarding in Place

Creating and Reclaiming Namescapes Through Skatescapes

Abstract

This exploration paper considers the sport/art/activity of skateboarding as it intertwines with spatial experiences, identities, and our personal and kinetic vernaculars. I try to understand what skateboarders, and Indigenous skateboarders especially, can teach us about alternative ways to understand space, place, and identity. I posit that skateboarding encourages spatial comprehension and landscape-use in particular ways, what I think of as a skatescape: a landscape as seen through skateboarders’ eyes. Through a skateboarding media and art lens, I reflect on some ways in which skateboarding influences narratives of place and belonging. I then consider these personal narratives and attempt to broaden the definition of a skatescape and in so doing speculate on how we create, share, and navigate our unique and personal spatial languages through movement and presence. Finally, I reveal that appreciating Indigenous skatescapes has illuminated a blindspot in my settler psyche: that up until recently I had not acknowledged fully that each and every spot I have ever skated was and is Indigenous land.