Issue 1: Magical, Realism
Welcome to the inaugural issue of SAUCE, a journal for skate studies.
Skate studies is a field of serious academic research that covers the activities, cultures, and institutions of skateboarding, averaging over 150 published articles and a few books a year. That seems like a lot of activity spent studying something known for being carefree and just for fun. But is skateboarding carefree and just for fun? If you skate and stop to think about it, skateboarding might be one of the most serious parts of your life.
For me, doing research on skateboarding resembles skating in the streets with my friends. For instance, reading books and articles is like searching the city for spots to skate. And when I write out how an aspect of skateboarding fits one of these ideas, it feels like getting a skate clip. Research in skate studies is kind of like turning an ordinary red fire-lane curb into a slappy curb session; this research turns random ideas into our ideas. Publishing skate scholarship has always involved a similar version of this “street” skate studies, of finding journals from other disciplines just to see if we could “skate” there. Publishing on skateboarding in another discipline’s journal is then like finding street spots and skating them.
This kind of street skate studies is powerful, and there is no real need to have our own skate journal for skate studies, as there are plenty more research "spots" to publish. But this idea started and we found a spot to start our own little DIY journal, and there are enough of us to start building some stuff to skate. SAUCE is a DIY for skate studies, one we can construct however we want. Please feel free to read and enjoy or submit your own work and start building some stuff for others to read. All skaters are welcome.
Brian Glenney
Editor-In-Chief
Introduction to the Issue - Magical, Realism: Thoughts on Skate Urbanism
From "skateboarding is not a crime" to "keep skateboarding a crime, not an Olympic sport," attitudes towards authority and incorporation are constantly evolving and reacting to cultural and industry shifts. Skate urbanism is an ideal topic to explore and debate the changing landscape of skateboarding and introduce SAUCE. Should skateboarders get involved in city planning to create more skate-friendly environments? Does that kill the punk spirit and defeat the purpose of street skating? Or is it the culmination of skateboarders radically transforming cities? Is skate urbanism "winning" or "dying?" This tension and contradiction is the heart of the debate presented in this issue: what, and more importantly where, is the magic of skateboarding? There is no definitive answer.
Instead, skate urbanism is a "grey space’" filled with nuance, tension, and disagreement (O’Connor, 2024). Rather than try to settle the debate, this issue offers several perspectives on the topic that creates a dialogue between viewpoints. To quote our Editor-in-Chief Brian Glenney, think of SAUCE and this issue as a “‘session of inquiry,’ akin to a skateboard session in which each person participates in interacting with a skate obstacle (idea) bringing their different epistemologies (styles) into the overall performance” (Geckle at al., forthcoming).
So let’s have a session! At the spot today we have Brian and Paweł critiquing the artificiality of sanctioned skate spots and how they compromise the "old magic" of authentic street skating. Ema and Harry respond with an emphasis on the "new magic" offered by the changing landscape of skateboarding. Meanwhile, Tom unlocks a spot near to our hearts, the DIY, through which skaters enchant their own surroundings. To this point, Juliette and Jean-Sébastien highlight real ways in which skateboarders can improve physical space and the communities around them. Ted rounds things out, reminding us that the magic of skateboarding isn’t magic at all. It’s real. It’s something we produce through our relationships with space and one another.
Paweł’s essay critiques Berra’s use of purpose-built rails in Skate More (2005), arguing that passing off purpose-built skate plazas and structures and ‘real’ street spots is akin to presenting images of animals in a zoo as wildlife photography. His analogy brings to mind the irony of the Berrics "DON’T EVER STOP HOPPING FENCES" sign. From the confines of the exclusive skatepark that lured the biggest pros off the streets and away from other skaters to be made comfortable and domesticated in their skater zoo, Berra imprisoned himself and others in a way that feels very Animal Farm. We might compare the Berrics’ zoo to what Brian calls an "ecological trap" in his article critiquing purpose-built sanctioned skate spots. According to him, they sanitize and defeat the purpose of street skating’s reappropriation of space, and over-dependence on these spaces can cause skaters to lose their skills and instincts to thrive in the wild. Yet, Brian acknowledges, these spaces still host the capacity for magic, perhaps just a new kind, a sentiment that is further explored in Ema’s examination of a "dying magic" and burgeoning "new wave."
Ema’s article argues the deification of ‘legendary spots’ can ultimately destroy them. However, this death is also a rebirth. The OG legendary spots were produced by a narrow set of meaning makers. Now, the increasingly diffuse, independent, and accessible new media, combined with a new skate urbanism, we can produce a new roster of legendary spots that are more dispersed, niche, and unique than our former monolithic icons – and with more diverse users and documenters. This is exactly the shift Harry documents in his article about a ‘new-traditional skateboarding.’ He observes how an OG legendary spot like Southbank became host to the women-led Social Skate Summit, which produced a highly inclusive and highly social session. Like "new skate urbanism," there is also a "new skate socialization" that includes purpose-planned skate sessions to bring new and non-traditional skaters into the mix. They foster new norms and practices focused on support, diversity, and inclusion through the tradition of a skate session.
Importantly, Southbank, the site of this moment of new-traditional skating, is also one of those spots originally made iconic through the narrow old guard of skateboarders. But, through the desire to preserve and protect this space, invited in the new skate urbanism and its more pro-social, community-driven elements. Harry’s example represents precisely the type of counter-political, heterotopic possibilities Juliette and Jean-Sebastian’s article suggests skateboarding offers to cities. They invite skate urbanism as a strategy to interrupt the dominant, controlling logics of the city by introducing pockets of creativity, leisure, and community through the co-production of skate spaces. They hope that by integrating skateboarding into urban governance, skateboarding can reckon with its exclusion from the broader community as well as the exclusion present within its own community, and a “more open, egalitarian, and inclusive urbanity” can be developed.
But we must keep our wits about us — how do we make sure that skate urbanism is not another way for cities to use skateboarders as “shock troops of gentrification” or the “broom” with which cities sweep out those deemed more undesirable? (Howell, 2005; Arthur, 2018). Especially when there isn’t a consensus on what skate urbanism is. Is it okay to settle on the idea that it could be, like skateboarding, many things at once? Or do we need to line up behind a more restrictive (and radical) take in order to protect our intentions? What are the means and what are the ends?
Tom’s narrative vignettes combined with critical reflections illustrate and attempt to attend to some of these concerns. By acting as local stewards, investing in and taking responsibility for our surroundings, we can try to protect one another and the environments we inhabit. His essay compares skaters to pirates who can invade, take command of, and transform our worlds into something better. Like Juliette and Jean-Sebastian, he highlights not only what skate urbanism offers skaters, but also what skate urbanism offers to the broader community. By repurposing the vacant and neglected spaces in our local communities to build skate spaces, we can exploit our legal powers to our benefit as well as the public interest. But remain vigilant, there be dragons! Or at least government snakes who would use skateboarding to harmful ends. We must consider who else is impacted by our presence and how. Our vision of "the public good" must be empathetic and considerate of the most vulnerable and marginalized.
Building from Tom’s example rooted in physical DIY construction, Ted’s essay posits that there is no otherworldly magic in skateboarding. It is merely an illusion representative of the hard work, imagination, dedication, etc. that skaters have put into producing the craft, culture, industry, and spaces of skateboarding. Thus, it can never disappear as it is a part of the act itself and the people who do it. The ‘magic’ of skateboarding is a social product created by us for us. Thus, it will continue to adapt alongside us and our changing needs amidst new skaters, landscapes, surveillance technologies, hostile architecture, and whatever else. Essentially, in true Animal Chin fashion, the ‘real’ magic of skateboarding is the friends (and meaning) we made along the way. As our writers remind us, there are ‘no paradigm shifts’ in a culture constantly chasing NBDs (Lundry, 2002). So just keep doing whatever the hell you want.
Bethany Geckle
Lead Editor
Sources
Howell, O. (2005). The "creative class" and the gentrifying city: Skateboarding in Philadelphia's Love Park. Journal of Architectural Education, 59(2), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1531-314X.2005.00014.x
Lundry W (2002). Subvert the dominant paradigm. Thrasher Magazine, 1 October.
O’Connor, P. (2024). Conceptualising grey spaces in skateboarding: Generating theory and method for use beyond the board. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 59(7), 957-974. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902241250089
Articles
The Dying Magic of Legendary Skate Spots
Ema Ostřížková deconstructs iconic first-wave street spots.
New-Traditional Skateboarding
Harry Meadley traces how a tradition of exclusion became, however partially, a tradition of inclusion.
This Old Magic: Disenchantment and the New Skate Urbanism
Brian Glenney on the risks of sanctioned skate spaces.
The Skateboarding Spot as an Urban Heterotopia: Preservation Challenges and a Skaturbanism Perspective
Juliette Evon and Jean-Sébastien Lacam on an alternative framework for understanding, recognizing and integrating skateboarding into the production and governance of urban space.
Essays
John Locke and the Skate Pirates: Property Rights and Their Limits
Dr. Thomas Kemp on labor, private property, and the public will of DIY skateparks.
Reviewers, Issue 1
Kyle Beachy
Karin Book
Kristen Ebeling
Chris Giamarino
Giancarlo Marques Carraro Machado
Harry Meadley
Adelina Ong
Cengiz Salman
Francisco Vivoni
Paul Wright
