Relational Places: The Surfed Wave as Assemblage and Convergence

Abstract

Taking the lead from social science moves to frame places as “open-ended, mobile, networked, and actor-centred geographic becoming[s]” (M Jones, 2009, “Phase space” Progress in Human Geography 33, page 5), this paper introduces how the ‘surfed wave’ can be understood as a relational place. Drawing on commentaries from surfers on the practice of wave riding, the paper will show that the surfed wave can be usefully understood in two ways: as an ‘assemblage’ (see Delanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity 2006, Continuum Books, London 2006), and as a ‘convergence’ (see J Anderson, 2009, “Transient convergence and relational sensibility” Emotion, Space and Society 2 120–127). Whilst the notion of assemblage suggests that surfers, boards, and waves are ‘connected’ together to form one coherent unit for the lifetime of the ride the notion of convergence suggests that the surfed wave becomes a place whose constituent parts are not simply connected together; rather, their thresholds are blurred into a converged entity/process. Theorising from the sea in this way is an important move. It demonstrates how the relational turn can encourage us not only to consider traditional places in new ways but also to consider new (watery) ‘coming togethers’ as ‘places’. I argue that these theorisations from the sea offer new perspectives on more traditional (terrestrial) places and human relationships with them.

Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces: Giving Depth to Volume through Oceanic Thinking

“…Conversely, space ceases to be a stable background but a part of the unfolding. The world is constituted by 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Thus, we see the ocean as a space of churning, where, after Anderson (2012), place is provisional and forever being (re-)produced. Echoing our prior critique of geology, as well as Elden's critique of Weizman, it would be a mistake to apply contemporary insights on volume and verticality to the ocean in a way that conceptualises it as a space of fixed horizontal strata (e.g.…”

“…In turn, this hydro-elemental assemblage allows us to re-think motion and matter and how it shapes the world as we know it (J. Anderson, 2012;Lehman, 2013a;Peters, 2012;Steinberg, 2013). …”

Science and culture in the Kerguelen Islands: a relational approach to the spatial formation of a subantarctic archipelago

“…Island scholarship is increasingly adopting a relational turn in its spatial conception of islands (see, for instance, Anderson, 2012;Pugh, 2016;Steinberg & Peters, 2015). This is a recognition that the conceptualization of islands cannot be solely reduced to their isolation and specificity, though physically they might be remotely located from the mainland (Hay, 2006).…”

Putting Lifeworlds at Sea: Studying Meaning-Making in Marine Research

“…1-2). In this context, embodied actions and movements themselves speak and enact, rather like the surfed waves that people allude to as watery "places" that conjoin together (Anderson, 2012).…”

“…The first entails a significant body of largely coastal ethnographic and historic research undertaken through the interpretive lens of "saltwater" realms, meanings and interactions (see Sharp, 2002;McNiven, 2004;Schneider, 2012). The second constitutes the lively and dynamically growing field of critical ocean geography that attempts to rupture, stimulate and experiment with novel ways of thinking and writing through/with (as opposed to on) "wet ontologies" , while weaving in both interspecies being and becomings, together with the material flows, processes and social lives of inanimate objects and previously understudied forms of lived dimensionality such as volume and marine verticality (see Anderson, 2012;Sammler and House-Peters, 2013;Muttenzer, 2015).…”