Disqualifying the Official: An Exploration of Social Resistance through the Subculture of Skateboarding

Abstract

This paper describes some of the ways in which popular culture may be a site of social resistance. The subculture of skateboarding is described as one form of popular culture that resists capitalist social relations, and the skateboarders’ particularly overt resistance to an amateur contest provides a framework for characterizing their daily and more covert behaviors of resistance. Although social resistance has the potential to change dominant social relations, it is often limited by contradictions and accommodations. In this case, the skateboarders’ sexist behavior is one of their significant contradictions. Finally, some implications of social resistance are addressed.