Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: Critical Localisms in a Globalized World  1

Part I. California Goes Global  

1. Californians in Diaspora: The Making of a Local/Global Subculture  35

2. Wanting to Be Lisa: The Surfer Girl Comes of Age  76

Part II. Globalization from Below  

3. The Politics of Play: Tourism, Ecofeminism, and Surfari in Mexico  117

4. Surf Shops and the Transfer of Girl Localist Knowledge  162

5. Surfing the New World Order: What Is Next?  205

Notes  231

Bibliography  259

Index  273

“Immersing herself in girl surf culture, Comer has constructed an accessible body of research that, while very readable, offers a fiercely intelligent commentary. . . . Surfer Girls in the New World Order is thorough and acute; Comer situates her argument in the lived experiences of surfer girls and women while also drawing important connections to surfing’s place in the broader context of social and economic ideologies.”—Alicia Sowisdral, Elevate Difference

“This fabulous book on women and the sport of surfing is the result of more than a decade of field research in multiple locations around the globe. . . . She expertly navigates the waves of feminism. . . . Analysis of popular culture rounds out this lovely book. . . . Highly recommended.”—A. N. Valdivia, CHOICE

“Surfer girls in the new world order is clearly a product of passion. The enthusiasm and energy Krista Comer displays for this research, for women’s surfing and for the potential she sees for the development of feminist ways of knowing and politics through both local and global surfing cultural experiences, are both obvious and infectious. In particular, it is the discussions and conversations that Comer has spent so much time in engaging in with women in and around the surfing culture that contribute the most to the effectiveness of this book, and which distinguish it in important ways from other work in this area.”—Rebecca Olive, Gender, Place & Culture

“Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order exemplifies the most prominent theoretical trends that are transforming contemporary western studies. . . . Challenging Baywatch stereotypes, Comer reinterprets surf culture as resolutely, albeit imperfectly, political, transnational, environmentalist, multiculturalist, and feminist. With these bold reinterpretations, Comer encourages serious reconsideration of—if not outright debate about—surf culture’s larger cultural and political significance.”—Robert Bennett, Western American Literature

“This is a book that you wish you wrote... and not just because it is winning awards (notably, the Western Literature Association's Thomas J. Lyon Book Award), but because its theoretical sophistication blends perfectly with attentive close readings in ways that all scholars strive for.”—Simon C. Estok, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

“Comer’s book is a must read for scholars interested in the complexities of gender, race, culture, and globalization in sports. This is certain to be a generative study of surfing, one attentive to the possibilities and limits of women’s surfing as a globalized, ecofeminist, girl-powered endeavor.”—Brett Mizelle, Southern California Quarterly

“Surfer Girls in the New World Order is readable and engaging, making it broadly accessible for undergraduates and a wider readership. It is also useful for interested cultural studies and sports scholars. . . . Surfer Girls in the New World Order is based on engaging, enlightening and valuable research. As a feminist and a surfer, I am glad of the contribution it makes to the literature.”—Georgina Roy, Sociology of Sport Journal

“Immersing herself in girl surf culture, Comer has constructed an accessible body of research that, while very readable, offers a fiercely intelligent commentary. . . . Surfer Girls in the New World Order is thorough and acute; Comer situates her argument in the lived experiences of surfer girls and women while also drawing important connections to surfing’s place in the broader context of social and economic ideologies.”—Alicia Sowisdral, Elevate Difference

“This fabulous book on women and the sport of surfing is the result of more than a decade of field research in multiple locations around the globe. . . . She expertly navigates the waves of feminism. . . . Analysis of popular culture rounds out this lovely book. . . . Highly recommended.”—A. N. Valdivia, CHOICE

“Surfer girls in the new world order is clearly a product of passion. The enthusiasm and energy Krista Comer displays for this research, for women’s surfing and for the potential she sees for the development of feminist ways of knowing and politics through both local and global surfing cultural experiences, are both obvious and infectious. In particular, it is the discussions and conversations that Comer has spent so much time in engaging in with women in and around the surfing culture that contribute the most to the effectiveness of this book, and which distinguish it in important ways from other work in this area.”—Rebecca Olive, Gender, Place & Culture

“Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order exemplifies the most prominent theoretical trends that are transforming contemporary western studies. . . . Challenging Baywatch stereotypes, Comer reinterprets surf culture as resolutely, albeit imperfectly, political, transnational, environmentalist, multiculturalist, and feminist. With these bold reinterpretations, Comer encourages serious reconsideration of—if not outright debate about—surf culture’s larger cultural and political significance.”—Robert Bennett, Western American Literature

“This is a book that you wish you wrote... and not just because it is winning awards (notably, the Western Literature Association's Thomas J. Lyon Book Award), but because its theoretical sophistication blends perfectly with attentive close readings in ways that all scholars strive for.”—Simon C. Estok, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

“Comer’s book is a must read for scholars interested in the complexities of gender, race, culture, and globalization in sports. This is certain to be a generative study of surfing, one attentive to the possibilities and limits of women’s surfing as a globalized, ecofeminist, girl-powered endeavor.”—Brett Mizelle, Southern California Quarterly

“Surfer Girls in the New World Order is readable and engaging, making it broadly accessible for undergraduates and a wider readership. It is also useful for interested cultural studies and sports scholars. . . . Surfer Girls in the New World Order is based on engaging, enlightening and valuable research. As a feminist and a surfer, I am glad of the contribution it makes to the literature.”—Georgina Roy, Sociology of Sport Journal

“Surfer Girls in the New World Order is fantastic. The only book that I know of to address girls’ and women’s surfing from an analytical perspective, it opens into provocative questions about globalization and its discontents, ‘ecotourism’ and the surf safari, and conflicting paradigms of gender, economics, race, and culture.”—Leslie Heywood, author of Pretty Good for a Girl: An Athlete’s Story

“Surfer Girls in the New World Order is a timely, deftly organized, and compellingly readable study that is at once participatory, original, informed, intellectually sexy, and new.”—Rob Wilson, author of Reimagining the American Pacific: From South Pacific to Bamboo Ridge and Beyond

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