15 magg 2019 anni - Skateboarding LA: Inside Professional Street Skateboarding

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By Becky Beal
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306119842138pp

As a scholar who has researched the political and cultural dynamics of skateboarding for over 25 years, I looked forward to reading Gregory Snyder’s Skateboarding LA: Inside Professional Street Skateboarding. A focus on its professionalized practices is timely, given that skateboarding is included in the summer 2020 Olympics. Very few career sociologists have Snyder’s insider connections. Those connections, and the clarity of his writing, provide good insight into the processes by which a group of elite males develop their craft and subculture as well as how some of these men become part of the professional skateboard industry. Snyder’s insider status is derived from his brother, Aaron, who is a former professional skateboarder and currently a judge for the professional street league competitions. I found that Snyder contributes to our understanding of career paths within urban and “DIY” subcultures such as skateboarding but misses an opportunity to provide a critical lens on the complex politics within such career paths.

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