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Abstract

Located within feminist scholarship on sport, leisure and physical cultures, this article explores our attempts to understand what conducting ‘research with responsibility’ means as White, settler-coloniser, immigrant women researching surfing, place and community in Aotearoa New Zealand. Taking inspiration from Hamilton’s ‘intersectional reflexivity’ and Māori feminist scholars’ discussion of (de)colonizing methodologies, we discuss the development of our intersectional, collaborative methodology to understand our relationships to place, community and surfing. This co-ethnographic approach helped us navigate the ethics and challenges of knowledge production in Aotearoa New Zealand, and enabled us to be aware of, and open to, different worldviews and ways of knowing. We argue this methodology has value in developing better recognition of our own privileges; understanding of the intersectional politics-of-place we are part of as researchers, and as community members; and of the assumptions, motivations and values that inform our research practices.

Keywords

intersectionality reflexivity positionality co-ethnography decolonising methodology Māori indigenous knowledge surfing place aotearoa New Zealand knowledge production feminist research

Introduction

You are on Indigenous lands

swimming in Indigenous waters

looking up at Indigenous skies

(…)

Those who are not Indigenous to this land

are Settlers

(…)

You are living on stolen land

What can you do about it?

(Amberlin Kwaymullina, 2020: 3–6)

It is complicated because I am a White settler, so those are places I do not really belong – my own ancestors stole from Indigenous people and my presence continues to displace them from their land. So, I have no point of reference for making sense of the belonging I feel when I am on the beach I grew up on, which is… strange (Rebecca Olive, Project field notes).

Feminists have long advocated that reflexive methodological practice is essential for critical knowledge production, particularly in navigating the power dynamic and ethics in the research process (Coffey, 1999; Crenshaw, 1989; Moreton-Robinson, 2000; Rose, 1997). Broadly understood, in feminist methodology reflexivity is the process through which a researcher ‘recognizes, examines, and understands’ how their ‘social background and assumptions’ interpose the research process (Hesse-Biber, 2007: 129) by ‘taking a critical look inward’ and reflecting on our ‘lived reality and experiences’ (129). A plethora of research, including in this journal, has debated and endorsed different approaches to how reflexivity is conceived, approached and represented (see e.g. Folkes, 2022; Pillow 2003, 2015). Central to the reflexive process is acknowledgement of the researcher's position or positionality, which is used for ‘critical self-reflection before, during, and after a research project’ (Ross, Li and Call-Cummings, 2022: 7). Positional awareness is widely recognised as essential to help unpack the assumptions we bring into our research, to help us engage in self and other relationships, and to wrestle with our social positioning as people, and as researchers (Bryan, Hatchard and Gore 2018; Coffey, 1999; Rose, 2020; Ross, Li and Call-Cummings, 2022).

This body of research has also warned of reflexivity's limitations; that when ‘executed superficially’ it can be no more than ‘self-disclosure’ (Sweet, 2020: 941). For example, Ross, Li and Call-Cummings (2022) highlight that researchers often do not give sufficient detail to consider the limitations of their approaches, or the development of the dynamic nature of positionality (Rose, 2020), particularly as it ‘interweaves with the theoretical, methodological and analytical approach taken’ (Folkes, 2022: 2). As critical feminist researchers, our reflexivity needs to include consideration of how our social location or positionality impacts our epistemological and ontological assumptions, as well as the theories, and methods we use (Pillow, 2015).

It is not our intention here to rehearse debates about reflexivity. Rather, we aim to highlight the value and challenges of intersectional approaches to reflexivity (Baz, 2023; Hamilton, 2019), which ask researchers to consider the complex multiplicity of ways our subjectivities and identities impact our experiences of, relationships to, and effects on the world, particularly in relation to inequities and injustices. We recognise that White women have often excluded considerations of how whiteness (as well as sexuality, dis/ability, class, etc.) intersect in understanding their role in diverse women's oppressions, nor how these power asymmetries impact their positionality and reflexive practice (Crenshaw, 1989; Moreton-Robinson, 2000). As Black, Indigenous and First Nations feminists have long maintained, Whiteness continues to function as an invisible norm and site of privilege and power (hooks, 1981; Moreton-Robinson, 2000; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). Therefore, as Watson and Scraton (2018) outline, to conduct ‘reflexivity with responsibility’ (89) White, Settler feminists need to adequately interrogate our Whiteness and our role in ongoing impacts of colonisation, acknowledging how and why we are motivated to carry out particular research and ‘scrutinising how we go about’ it (93). Reflexivity with responsibility, they argue, requires us asking ‘“what can we do” in our role as researchers to change this’ (90) and engaging in research that ‘helps understand the complexities of social and material relations’ (90).

In this article our focus is our research on surfing communities and spaces in the Settler Colonial context of Aotearoa New Zealand.¹ Taking particular inspiration from Māori feminist scholars discussions of (de)colonizing methodologies (Pihama et al., 2014; Tuhiwai-Smith, 2012), and intersectional feminist approaches (Hamilton, 2019; Ratna 2018; Watson, 2017; Watson and Scraton, 2018), we outline our attempts as White, Settler-coloniser², immigrant women to adopt an intersectional, collaborative methodology for navigating the different tensions and challenges that were central to our relationships to the ethics and politics of knowledge production in Aotearoa.

For some specific context on us as researcher; our academic journeys began in different disciplinary and generational contexts (Belinda completed her PhD in 1997 and Rebecca in 2013), but we have both drawn on feminist, anthropological, cultural studies and sociological traditions, albeit to different degrees. Our shared interest in lived experience, collective action and feminism as activism across our work and lives, is a crucial point of connection. These similarities in our values and methodological backgrounds led us both to methodological, epistemological and ontological questions about how to embrace ethnographic research that is sensitive to concerns around (the politics of) representing the Other, reflexivity, justice and ethics. We also recognised that as researchers we are ‘knowledge producers’ who decide upon the identities, categories and boundaries we privilege in our research (Watson and Scraton, 2018: 92). Yet for both of us, our work began with a focus on White, middle-class women and lacked attention to recognition of our own identities as White, able-bodied and cis-gendered. As Wheaton wrote (2002), despite reflecting on her shifting subjectivity and positionality being a proficient sport person, a ‘girlfriend’ (heterosexual cis-female), middle-class and White, ‘I failed to acknowledge and reflexively unpack the ways in which my [W]hite ethnicity was constructed, or how [W]hiteness, like other racial identities, is subject to change and contestation’ (260). Since our early work, we have both worked to develop more nuance and complexity in the literature, theories, methodologies and ethics we draw as researchers and knowledge producers.

As we continue to question the limitations of what we can see, feel, access, and know, we take inspiration from feminist scholar Aarti Ratna who, engaging with the complexities of researching the gendered and racialised politics of sporting cultures poses the question; ‘what [does] it means to research with responsibility’ (2018: 197). Thinking about responsibilities, she argues, requires greater acknowledgment of our motivations to do research, and for scholars to engage in ‘critical dialogue and exchange’ (Ratna, 2018: 198). Our critical dialogue in this article shows how bringing reflexivity into conversation with debates about our shifting positionalities and subjectivities helped us navigate a process that strives to be responsible, engaged, collaborative, ethical, and anti-colonial. That is, it is engaged with an aim of ‘staying well’ as White Settlers living on colonised lands (Slater, 2007, 2018). Through this discussion, our article contributes to ongoing debates about the value of reflexivity and positionality for developing anti-colonial thinking and practices, and to literature reflecting on the challenges of doing research about and with Indigenous peoples, places, histories and sport and leisure.

The article is structured as follows: First, we contextualise our research on surfing, subjectivities and place, with a focus on links between localism and Settler-colonisation. We highlight the need for intersectional approaches and understanding, and identify our conceptual framework, ‘intersectional reflexivity’. Then, we outline the methodological problems and challenges of doing ‘research with responsibility’ in Aotearoa. The remainder of the article focuses on an account of our journey over a period of 3 years illustrating our attempts as two women who identify as Pākehā³ and are Settler-coloniser newcomers (Olive, 2019), striving to research with responsibility using intersectional reflexivity.

Framing the research: surfing, local identities and place

A complex politics of belonging and authority associated with colonisation creates key tensions that shape contemporary surfing cultures and places. Building on the colonial practices that characterise the arrival of surfing in various locations, surfers have long been characterised by travelling lifestyles in their increasingly global search for waves (Ford and Brown, 2005). Nonetheless, many continue to experience a strong sense of belonging to particular places and surf breaks), often seeing themselves as having ‘local’ rights to control and regulate access to surf breaks, including sometimes through physical violence (Anderson, 2014; Ford and Brown, 2005; Olive, 2019). Surf localism remains a significant issue across research in countries including Australia, the USA, UK and Aotearoa.

However, much of the commentary on surf localism focuses on (White) men as the assumed authoritative inhabitants of surf spaces (lisahunter, 2018; Olive, 2019), rarely considering the complexities of place-based belonging in surfing culture (Ingersoll, 2016). As shown in Canada, the landscapes of outdoor sport and recreation are important sites where ‘recreational colonialism’ is advanced and (re)produced (Reid-Hresko and Warren, 2022: 110). The surf zone is also a complex, dynamic social space where different hierarchies play out across skill level, surf craft, sex/gender, ethnicity, age and more, leading to intersectional forms of exclusion (see e.g. Evers, 2004; Ingersoll, 2016; lisahunter, 2018; McGloin, 2017; Nemani, 2015; Olive et al., 2016; Gilio-Whitaker, 2017). In the context of Hawai’i, surfing localism is also deeply tied to Native Hawaiian resistance to colonisation (Ingersoll, 2016; Walker, 2011, 2017). Surfing is a cultural practice and space through which Native Hawaiians (Kānaka Maoli) maintain their cultural identity and sovereignty over place (Ingersoll, 2016; Walker, 2017). As Walker (2017) argues, Kānakā Maoli surfers’ acts of sometimes violent localism are fuelled by the ‘rising disparity between native Hawaiians’ and wealthy (White) settlers, which increases ‘social and cultural division along class lines’ including in the surf (69).

These insights shape our research on the cultures, spaces and experiences of surfers in Aotearoa,⁴ where coastal recreation including surfing plays an important role in community life, and is a focus for tourism (Sport NZ, 2015; Wheaton et al., 2021). Alongside this, coasts and oceans have long been sites of cultural, political and legal contestation for Māori people and iwi (S 2017 almond, 2014). As with issues of Indigenous autonomy and sovereignty in Hawai’i, rising inequalities for Māori in Aotearoa are important contextual issues in relation to the politics of surfing spaces. Reflecting international trends, surfing in Aotearoa is dominated by Pākehā men, yet surfing is also popular amongst Māori, and the number of women is increasing, as is inter-generational engagement. While surfing narratives have long been dominated by Pākehā participants Māori researchers have begun to seek out and reclaim the narratives and Mātauranga Māori⁵ of heke ngaru (wave riding) (Waiti and Awatere, 2019). Our research seeks to encompass the experiences of surfers across intersections including gender, age, ethnicity, skill level, surf craft and the ‘local’ places in which they are embedded, and to consider how these contribute to the cultural politics of surfing spaces and communities in Aotearoa.

‘Intersectional reflexivity’ as methodology

Kimberle Crenshaw (1989) introduced intersectionality as a ‘heuristic and analytic tool’ and method, to address the marginalisation of Black women in feminist and antiracist theory and politics (Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays, Tomlinson, 2013: 303). Intersectional approaches to feminism have subsequently been used across disciplines as an approach to help recognise multiple differences and social identities (Olsen, 2017b), widely advocated as a conceptual framework to advance understanding of ‘the lived experiences of marginalized peoples’ in ways that respect their ‘expertise and agency as knowledge producers’ (Hamilton, 2019: 530). Intersectional approaches have been influential within feminist scholarship on sport, leisure and physical cultures within which our research is located (Ratna and Farooq, 2018; Watson, 2017; Watson and Scraton, 2018).

However, less attention has been given to considerations of the integration of intersectional approaches in methodologies, which is acknowledged to be challenging (Ratna 2018; Watson, 2017). A key objective is to focus attention on the operation of power in the process of conducting research from both the perspective of participants and of the researcher (Hamilton, 2019). Hamilton advocates what she terms ‘intersectional reflexivity’ (2019: 532) as a way for researchers to interrogate their positionality, and how it ‘informs every aspect of the research process’ (Hamilton, 2019: 520). Similarly, Watson and Scraton (2018: 102) argue that to ‘unhinge scholarship from dominant norms linked to Whiteness’, White feminists need to grapple with the ‘ongoing challenges of questioning our positions and perspectives’ (2018: 87). Using an intersectional and feminist lens they argue that ‘confronting whiteness’ can be part of a broader project that explores different power inequalities and ways of knowing in sport and leisure (Watson and Scraton, 2018: 87). Like Ratna, they (2018: 93) call for acknowledging how and why we are motivated to carry out particular research, and ‘scrutinising how we go about’ it.

The challenges of doing ‘research with responsibility’ in Aotearoa New Zealand

In the context of research in settler colonial societies such as Aotearoa, Indigenous and First Nations scholars have long highlighted that researchers continue to prioritise Western research paradigms and reproduce Western knowledges and ways of knowing in a myriad of ways (Durie, 2004; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012; Whitinui, 2021). Indigenous communities, however, are heterogeneous, and the ethics and practice of how Settler-coloniser researchers can adopt culturally appropriate and just research practices varies between, and within, Indigenous communities (Bishop, 2005; Bond, Phillips and Osmond, 2015; Olsen, 2017a; Skille, 2021). We therefore introduce Aotearoa as our research context, and show the importance of recognising Mātauranga Māori – which refers to Māori epistemology, ontology and knowledge systems (Broughton and McBreen, 2015) – for research about community, sport and place in Aotearoa. Then we briefly highlight decolonising research imperatives in Aotearoa and their ontological challenges for White settler researchers.

Since the 1980s Aotearoa has been described as a bi-cultural nation in public and state discourse, ‘signalling that Government departments began to adopt the idea that the languages, cultures and traditions of both Pākehā and Māori should be officially recognised by the state’ (Hayward, 2012). Despite this, and as is widely recognised, Māori people, communities and knowledge continue to be negatively impacted by colonial structures and practices (Durie, 2004). As Linda Tuhiwai Smith argues, research is implicated not just in the ‘production of theories that have dehumanised Māori’ and other Indigenous people, but through ‘the nature of academic work’ (2012: 183). ‘Western science’ continues to be prioritised with Mātauranga treated as ‘knowledge to be exploited, but not supported’, and Māori people are ‘treated as informants rather than collaborators, colleagues or experts’ (Broughton and McBreen, 2015: 84). Challenging this requires a decolonising agenda that centres Māori peoples and their worldviews, develops and supports communities of Māori researchers, and recognises the need to retrieve spaces of marginalisation from which to develop Indigenous-focused research agendas, methodologies and protocols (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). Within the context of studying sporting cultures, Māori scholar of sport Paul Whitinui (2021) highlights the urgent need to develop such a decolonising agenda within sociologies of sport and physical activity.

To realise this decolonising agenda, Māori scholars have widely advocated Kaupapa Māori approaches, which reject Western research paradigms and the research ‘tools of the colonizer’ (Durie, 2004: 1140) and assert that the three principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) – partnership, participation and protection – need to be upheld (Hapeta et al., 2019; Pihama et al., 2002). Tino Rangatiratanga, Māori leadership, control and self-determination are deemed essential; therefore, ‘being Māori, identifying as Māori and as a Māori researcher, is a critical element of Kaupapa Māori research’ (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012: 188). While those who are not Māori are not precluded from involvement, they should not participate if it reduces the leadership and development of Māori researchers or communities (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012).

As has been widely debated, this epistemological standpoint raises practical, ethical and conceptual issues and dilemmas for non-Indigenous researchers doing research in settler colonial nations (e.g. Bishop, 1994, 2005; Conran, 2022; Olsen, 2017b; Skille, 2021). As we consider further below, from an intersectional perspective, while ‘the symbolic appeal of an authentic identity’ continues to be essential in Indigenous sovereignty and political struggles, it is less clear how the idea that Indigenous people are ‘essentially different’ than non-Indigenous people ‘translates to the world of research’ (Olsen, 2017a: 516–517; see also Moeke-Maxwell, 2005). Nonetheless, starting this project we understood that as Pākehā, newcomer women we could not meaningfully ‘research’ Māori surfers’ experiences, nor should we. Yet, we recognised that outdoor sport and recreation such as surfing is used by White Settlers to actively recreate their own sense of identity and belonging (Laurendeau, 2020; Olive, 2019; Reid-Hresko and Warren, 2022), which can marginalise and exclude Indigenous (and other) experiences. Anti-colonial work is not the responsibility of Indigenous people but of all people seeking to ‘challenge settler colonialism to envision a decolonial future’ (McGuire-Adams and Giles, 2018: 209). However, we were unclear how to research ‘recreational colonialism’ (Reid-Hresko and Warren, 2022) in responsible ethical ways that broadened understanding beyond ‘dominant’ Eurocentric lenses (see also, Whitinui, 2021).

‘Intersectional reflexivity’ in settler colonial places

Intersectional feminist research approaches have also been advocated for developing more critical and reflexive understandings of the different assumptions, epistemologies, motivations and values that inform research practices in Colonised places (Olsen, 2017a; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). For example, McGuire-Adams and Giles (2018) research with Indigenous women and sport in Canada show how intersectional analysis helped centre ‘Indigenous ways of thinking/being’, promoting the ‘decolonial thinking and practice’ required to disrupt ‘the continuance of settler colonialism’ (2018: 209). In outlining what a decolonising agenda might look like for sport sociologists, Whitinui suggests that ‘understanding what it means to be in “good relations” with Indigenous peoples is fundamental to how we continue to build on and improve our discipline together’ (2021: 3). Following Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) he argues that:

employing an ethical ‘code of conduct’ that is grounded in decolonizing theory, and aimed at critiquing our own level of privilege, power, and agency is an important place to begin to understand power imbalances and where power lies, and who holds the balance of power. (Whitinui, 2021: 3)

From this perspective, interrogating how we – as cis-gendered, White, Settler-coloniser, women researchers – can improve our research practices is productive. As British-born Canadian scholar Sykes’ (2014) work evocatively shows, critically reflecting on the ways settler-colonialism shaped her approach to research helped ‘un-settle’ her theoretical, epistemology and theoretical assumptions ‘illuminating a methodology that can work in solidarity with anti-colonial movements in sport studies’ (584)

Alongside this, we recognised that although every researcher is located in ‘a binary of colonial relations’ their subjectivity is fluid rather than fixed (Nicholls, 2009: 118). As intersectional approaches suggest, insider/outsider relations are a ‘complex matrix’ (Olsen 2017b: 212; see also, Carrington 2008; Watson and Scraton, 2018). Dichotomies such as insider-outsider, put too much emphasis on difference which can perpetuate ideas about ‘them’ and ‘us’ (Olsen, 2017b; Song and Parker, 1995), including in understanding who is ‘local’. Similarly, speaking about Māori identities, Moeke-Maxwell (2005) argues ‘highly politicized Māori ethnicities were employed in Māori sovereignty struggles, which strategically reproduced the notion of an essentialized Māori identity’ (226). Yet, Māori are an increasingly racially and culturally diverse group of people ‘who have a shared history and cultural traditions’ (241). This point is vividly illustrated by Māori Samoan researcher Mihi Nemani, who reflexively outlines how her Māori and Samoan backgrounds led to experiencing feelings of difference in surfing cultures in Aotearoa. Nemani shows that the belief ‘that if you are Māori, you speak and understand all things Maori (Nemani, 2015) can be difficult for some Māori researchers like herself. Like Moeke-Maxwell (2005), Nemani shows the intersecting and often contradictory cultural values, beliefs and practices associated with her unique cultural specificities. Nemani acknowledges that while she presents her ‘story’ through both her Samoan and Māori worldviews, ‘Westernised ways’ play a large part in how she negotiated her ‘way through society’, including surfing, ‘inadvertently creating a new lens’ (2015: 96).

Developing our methodology: feminist collaboration and reflexivity

Our starting point for ‘intersectional reflexivity’ (Hamilton, 2019) was a shared commitment to a methodology that had at its ‘core a political and ethical responsibility’ including to how we conducted ourselves as researchers and as community members (Olive, 2018: 336). However, our project arises from a long-standing focus on gender and surfing spaces which emerged from our academic and personal interests as women who surf.

From our past ethnographic research on surfing, and attempts to develop researcher reflexivity and positionality (e.g. Olive, 2018; Wheaton, 2002) we were cognisant that within much ethnographic ‘insider’ research about sporting cultures, the ‘researcher's “authenticity” is not sufficiently challenged’, often presuming masculinity in ways that ‘delimit the legitimate sporting selfhood for women’ (Watson, 2017: 325). We had also experienced how as women who surf, we could gain access to these male-dominated spaces as cultural ‘insiders’, while recognising that insider/outsider positions are complex and shifting (Pavlidis and Olive, 2013; Wheaton, 2013).

We had also engaged in a collaborative project involving seven women researchers sharing a surf session in Aotearoa (Olive et al., 2016). Despite all being women who surf, we rode different boards, had different relationships to the place ranging from newcomer to local surfers, and had different skill levels, ethnicities, nationalities, sexualities and ages. Taking inspiration from Norris, Sawyer and Lund (2012), we wrote, shared and analysed reflexive fieldnotes about our surfing experiences of the same surf at the same time. This collaborative reflexive project highlighted how intersecting aspects of our subjectivities impacted surfing identities and spaces. It also helped us think through the potential, and challenges, of collaborative feminist fieldwork for enhancing reflexivity and for engaging with multiple positions in a research field.

We heeded the advice of feminists in Aotearoa that reflexivity and ‘nurturing self-awareness is critical’ (Legge, 2018: 827) in becoming more culturally responsive, requiring researchers to display ‘an openness to being taught by experience, a tolerance for uncertainty and an understanding of power’ (Jones 2012: 100). We recognised that to do so, involves positioning ourselves as a part of colonisation; how we perpetuate it, are complicit in it, and impacted by it. As Fox and McDermott (2018) suggest, an important first step for (sport and leisure) scholars engaging with Indigenous peoples’ worldviews, ways of knowing and being, is to entertain that as Settler-coloniser women we do not know what the problem and/or solution is, and that we enter collaborative relationships (see also Liu, 2021).

Developing our co-ethnography

A methodology used by Earl and Kidd (2018) – two women academics, one Pākehā and one Māori – influenced our approach. As women who had often moved around Aotearoa, Earl and Kidd developed a collaborative ethnographic approach to interrogate the question ‘where are you from’ (Earl and Kidd, 2018: 85)? While this question led to discomfort for both women, it opened a wealth of productive conversations about belonging in contemporary Aotearoa. Methodologically, Earl and Kidd suggest co-ethnography differs to duo-ethnography in that they ‘interacted and researched’ through an approach they saw as ‘collaborative and autoethnographic’ (2018: 90). This providied ‘space for multiple understandings that incorporate experience, self and other’ (87), which developed their reflexivity. Also important were their feminist ethics of collaboration, collegiality and convivialty. As they explain, their approach required personal and professional trust, willingness to be vulnerable and to listen, the capacity to share power and responsibility, and consideration for others. They also outline ‘a belief in the worth of the process for whatever outcomes’ (2018: 90).

These considerations were useful for framing our approach. When starting the project we had an established research relationship and personal friendship, including surfing together regularly. After many conversations about our surfing experiences, we formalised our critical conversations and observations through shared fieldnotes, and had in-person and email conversations about our engagements with theory, literature and surfing itself. This dialogue helped us to make sense of surfing cultural spaces and practices, and provoked new questions about community, belonging and subjectivity. For ethical reasons, the data we draw on including conversations, observations and publicly available social and mass media has been anonymised, and in places adapted, to remove identification of places and people. We have chosen to use the name Surf Town to represent a composite surf community that, while rooted in real places, represents multiple research sites, and experiences.

Where are you from?

Our first point of discussion was how we had experienced moving to Aotearoa, and of surfing in a new place and country. For both of us, our migrations were facilitated by jobs and opportunities; active choices not forced mobilities. Yet it became clear in our conversations that we arrived with different knowledges and expectations about surf culture, and of belonging. We interrogated this using Earl and Kidd's (2018) approach to thinking through the question ‘where are you from?’ (cf. Inglis, 2008), and specifically Inglis' provocation; ‘what do people mean when they say they are from a particular area, village, town, city or country? What is the sense and level of identity, belonging and attachment’ (Inglis, 2008: 5, cited in Early and Kidd, 2018: 97)? This led Earl and Kidd to question how they classified themselves, each other, and their different sense of belonging and of home. However, we were also aware of the complex politics of our mobility as immigrants and visitors, and kept in mind Ahmed et al.'s (2003) point wherein ‘the question of who can travel has to be supplemented by the question of who can stay’ (7, emphasis original).

Rebecca , a White Australian woman in her 30s, moved to Aotearoa having grown up and lived in a busy, regional surf town in Australia, to which she maintains a strong sense of attachment. She discussed the importance of her hometown, the only place she can really remember living as a child:

We moved back to [place] when I was three. [Place] is where my father was born and grew up. My father's family has lived in and owned homes in that town for several generations now, and my niece is the fourth generation of our family to go to the local primary school. When I was in primary school I used to visit my great grandmother's house after school. My father's parents are both from big families – my grandfather is one of 16 children and my grandmother one of 13 – and my own family home was built next door to my grandparents’… I surf with people I started school with, who have always known me. I surf with people my dad went to school with, and who have known him since he was a child.

While family and community were very important, Rebecca also recognised she had a strong attachment to the physical place:

I feel as though no-one can know me until they see my home places, especially the beaches. It's more than a home or a place though, it's part of who I am – it's in my skin and bones and heart… the land, the rocks, the sand, water, plants, creatures and winds – this will always be home to me. I know it's not mine and I have no rights to claim any custodianship, but I do love it and know myself best when I’m there. I don’t think I’ll be able to live there again⁶, but it will always be home.

Belinda identifies as European and moved to Aotearoa in her late 40s from England, with her partner and two children. She had also lived on the coast for several decades but, in contrast to Rebecca, in places where surf culture was not a central part of the community. Belinda did not share Rebecca's sense of the importance of her hometown to her sense of self, family or community. She grew up in a large city where gentrification had changed the fabric of the community so completely that neither she nor her family, had any ongoing links to the place she grew up. Her mother had come to England as a child as a forced migrant, and her extended family now lived across Europe, the USA and beyond. Reading Rebecca's narrative, Belinda recalled how she was surprised at how close-knit communities were in Aotearoa, with several generations in one place and with children often going to the same schools as their parents and grandparents. Soon after their arrival:

My kids had grandparent day at school which they found odd. They were one of only a few kids whose grandparents didn't or couldn’t turn up. I went to a different school to the rest of my family, and even different schools to my half-sister. People living away from their extended family was common, 'normal', where I grew up.

Reading Rebecca's reflection Belinda realised that she struggled to classify herself in terms of place. She found she resonated with Earl's comments about having the privilege to experience foreign landscapes, and not feeling such a sense of ‘their inheritance in/of place’ can expand options (Early and Kidd, 2018: 95). Earl recounted a sense of ‘hope and anticipation’ each time she moved; ‘I always felt that there was a better version of me in the new place’ (Earl and Kidd, 2018: 92). Moving to Aotearoa, Belinda had also felt hope and anticipation; she imagined ‘I was going to slow down, have more time for my family, a less pressured workplace. I think some of that dissolved when I started to realise what living in the new place really entailed’. Furthermore,, reading Rebecca's reflections about the importance of the landscape and community of her home provoked Belinda to reflect on how her sense of home was the coastal place in England where she had lived for much of her adult life.

I [Rebecca] always loved being part of a community in this way… bumping into people in the supermarket, in the surf, in the street, and having them ask and care about my own and my family's life and well-being. Even having lived in so many other places over the years, and even as the town changes, I still feel as though [place] is my home.

Yes, I [Belinda] have a similar feeling in [place] in England… I’ll constantly bump into people I know, or who want to know about my family. Even now after several years, if I go into a particular local pub, it feels familiar, and that I belong.

These conversations helped Belinda to better recognise the different ways in which people in Aotearoa experienced their place-based identities, and of her different Eurocentric upbringing.

Othering ourselves: can I be local?

While understanding ‘who is local’ in the context of surfer identities became a key question for us, like Earl and Kidd (2018) we did not initially seek answers to that question. Rather, we sought to explore how by ‘being in dialogue’ with our biographies, identities, and relationships with where we are from, our field notes, and with each other, we could gain a greater understanding of the intersectional factors that contribute to the cultural politics of these surfing spaces, and the ongoing impacts of Settler-colonisers.

As proficient surfers, we are able to physically access and navigate surfing spaces. However, our different past experiences impacted our expectations about how we would be accepted in surfing culture in Aotearoa, and we had different ways of being in Surf Town. Belinda was employed in a continuing, senior role, had two children in local schools, and has subsequently gained residency and bought a house. Rebecca was on a fixed-term 18-month contract in a post-doctoral research position and was renting. Particularly significant to our ways of understanding our relationships to Surf Town, were our past histories and relationships to surfing places. Belinda had travelled extensively in her youth, visiting many surf breaks around the world, including for months at a time. While she had experienced tensions between travellers and local communities, particularly in Hawai’i, she was optimistic about her family being accepted in their new community in Aotearoa. Rebecca arrived with different expectations, based on experiencing the impacts of tourism, seasonal workforces, and gentrification in her Australian hometown, and an appreciation of the complexities of being a White Settler living in a colonised country. She discussed the impact tourism and increasing crowds had on her home communities, including in the surf:

Coming from a tourist town has taught me a lot about belonging. Visitors often claim a sense of home and belonging to [place] that is based on an annual holiday or semi-regular visits…. Sometimes when I go home, people newer to the town are rude to me in the surf, but then change when they see me talking warmly with a more well-known local or have someone call out a greeting to me. It seems to me that people who are newer to the town are more keen to be positioned as ‘local’.

Talking about her relationship with a sense of home Rebecca wrote the reflection on the tensions of feeling a sense of belonging while being a Settler-coloniser, which opens the introduction of this article. She recognised that in Australia, White, Settler-colonial women and other ‘local’ women surfers, speak over both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty and of the forms of belonging of newer immigrant families (Olive, 2019). Rebecca was therefore aware of the layers of politics she would face in Surf Town in Aotearoa, and that any relationship with community was shaped by the limitations of her visitor status (i.e., her 18-month contract). Because of this, and her understandings of small, regional tourist towns, her expectations of inclusion into the surf community were low. As she wrote about her arrival:

When I moved to Aotearoa, I knew I would not belong. [Surf Town is] not my home and to go from being in a place that is in the very fabric of my sense of self, to a place where I don’t yet have relationships, is a shift.

Speaking of her arrival, she recalled spending ‘a lot of time walking on the beach and getting to know the place, rather than trying to quickly make friends’ because iIn small towns, these kinds of relationships can’t be forced’. She recollected that ‘getting to know the place itself allowed me to develop a relationship that did not depend on anyone else. It was reliant on my own commitment and time’. Over time, as she developed relationships with people, she shifted this and ‘made sure to listen to my Māori friends and to take note of cultural knowledge such as tapus⁷ on swimming and surfing at different times. I wasn’t always sure how to know these things or how to find them out, but I paid attention when I was able to’.

Negotiating the politics of the line-up

Although we were both non-local, cis-gendered, White, women who surfed, we were also attentive to the ways in which our differences, including ages, nationalities, and different surf crafts contributed to our acceptance and sense of emotional dis/connect. As the literature has identified, every time a surfer enters the surf zone they negotiate their position within a complex hierarchy where different locales, crafts (from longboards to bodyboards), age, ethnicities and sexualities can impact surfers’ knowledge, assumptions and hierarchies. However, it is widely understood that elite, ‘core’ men on short boards dominate and control many surfing spaces, thereby often excluding beginners, outsiders and policing other craft (Evers, 2004; Ford and Brown, 2005; Nemani, 2015; Waitt and Clifton, 2012).

In Aotearoa, Rebecca saw herself as a ‘non-local’, an Australian, and a longboarder, which in many surfing spaces has a marginalised status (Olive, 2016; Waitt and Frazer, 2012). She recalled how she had ‘more than once experienced people making me feel unwelcome due to my board’. Therefore:

When I started surfing [in Surf Town] I stayed wide and quiet in the lineup. I didn’t compete for waves, I just surfed in my own way that made sense of the break itself. But my board allowed me to surf less obtrusively because I wasn’t competing for the same waves as the shortboarders… I was happy to gather those outside waves that were going unridden.

She was aware of how she positioned herself differently in Aotearoa to surfing in her home break. While stating that having grown up in a place did not give her a ‘right to call anyone out’, she also felt ‘an obligation to the culture of the practice of surfing to call out unsafe or aggressive behaviour (if it's safe for me to do so) and to take care of beginners or people less confident than me’. She felt differently about her responsibilities during her time surfing in Surf Town:

Would I have called out behaviour in [Surf Town]? Not as much. But I wouldn’t have done anything to make myself visible to the locals who surfed in the thick of things. They knew who I was, I guess, but I never made claims to have rights to waves. I did make claims to my own safety I suppose… In two-years, I never got involved in the deep-on-the-inside-hassling-for-waves position. That's not to say I was a surfing angel. I stood up for myself and called out or reacted to bad behaviour, but it was always in terms of surfing culture and norms (or challenging norms), and specifically never to do with rights associated with the place… After a while, people started to talk to me in the surf. In part, my arrival and consistent presence at the beginning of winter positioned me differently than if I’d arrived in summer. Many people come for a summer and then leave.

In contrast, Belinda did not have Rebecca's sensitivity to living in a colonised country. For example, she reflected on how she lacked awareness about how a Pākehā newcomer family that could afford to buy a home, might be resented by less economically-privileged, long-standing members of the community. She became less optimistic about being accepted in Aotearoa, recognising she had been naïve. Over time Belinda became more aware of the complex ways in which colonisation impacted everyday life. Her education was facilitated through her work environment, and her children who learnt Te Reo (Māori language) and about Te Ao Māori (the Māori World) at school.⁸ Belinda recalled felling ‘embarrassed and inadequate’ because of her lack of knowledge, and especially her inability to correctly pronounce Māori words or names. Over time, she slowly developed Te Reo and Mātauranga Māori knowledge in her workplace and everyday life. These shift in our understanding was apparent as our project developed, and over time facilitatied our understanding of the ways in which Te Ao Māori and Mātauranga impacted surfer's relationships to coastal places.

Surf localism in Aotearoa

Surf localism practices were clearly evident in Aotearoa's surfing communities, and several surf localism incidents were highlighted in the national and international media during our research (e.g. Osborne, 2018; Pearlman, 2018). Surfers interviewed in these reports suggested ‘intimidation in the water was common’ and often instigated by territorial locals ‘who did not want outsiders using their waters’ (surfers cited in Pearlman, 2018). However, these articles also illustrated that contestation is not solely between locals and international newcomers or travellers (Olive, 2019), but includes ‘non-local’ New Zealanders. As Garbutt (2011) discusses, to be perceived as local can include a range of genealogical, cultural, residential, geographical factors, as well as personal relationships. Olive's (2019) research in Australia shows that defining ‘local’ (in communities generally, and surfing communities specifically) is difficult; the boundaries shift depending on who is enacting and regulating belonging.

We became aware that these complexities, including the different Pākehā and Māori relationships to place and understanding of rights and responsibilities to coastal places, were also embedded in localism discourses. Environments, including oceans, are integral to identities and cultures of Māori people, regarded as a taonga (treasure), providing food, a place for recreational activities, and a space to re-connect and re-affirm relationships with ancestors and Māori deities (Waiti and Awatere, 2019). As for Kānaka Maoli people in Hawai’i, cultural and place-based relations are central to understanding Māori relationships to coastal recreation (Phillips and Mita, 2016), including surfing (Waiti and Awatere, 2019; Waiti and Wheaton, 2022). While Māori surfers have long been prominent across Aotearoa's surfing spaces including elite levels, they do not appear to have the cultural status of Native Hawaiian surfers in Hawai’i and internationally. As revealed in the words of one older Māori surfer discussing the early 1960s:

There were very few of us [Māori] in those early days. Those local [town name] boys thought we were interlopers, coming to steal their waves. But myself and [name] actually come from around here. The interactions of surfers with Māori at the start of surfing [in place], was one of warring against each other.

White surfers in Aotearoa (as elsewhere), ignored indigenous relationships to land and place, claiming local status manifest through a relationship of longevity and commitment to place and to specific surf breaks:

…. Although things have changed over the years, [name] still hasn’t witnessed much respect between surfers and mana whenua and tangata whenua.

Evidence of these different ontologies about rights and responsibilities to coastal places, and they could lead to contestation, was evident in media reports about localism. In one (unusually violent) surf localism incident, Pākehā surfers were shot at from a beach in a remote Māori community (see Osborne, 2018; Pearlman, 2018). In explaining the event, the Mātauranga concepts of whakapapa (genealogy) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship of place) were clearly evident in the narratives of Māori surfers interviewed. For example, ‘Ever since I have known the place and the people that have cared for it, it's generally been by invitation’ by ‘family members who live in the area.’ He continued ‘People live there because they are born for that land’ (cited in Pearlman, 2018). ‘We all have rights to areas of our coastline – there are people who really care for their land and keep it as is’ (Osborne, 2018). Shooting at perceived interlopers is highly unusual and insupportable. However, these insights facilitated our understandings of the layered politics of belonging in Aotearoa's coastal spaces and communities, and the impacts on Māori, Pākehā and international travelling surfers.

Negotiating the politics of the line-up: shifting positionalities

Over time, Belinda became a more competent surfer, and developed familiarity and friendships with other surfers, women and men, Pakeha, Māori and other ethnic identities, long-term and more transient residents. She felt increasingly comfortable surfing in Surf Town. However, she was also aware of needing to continually negotiate her place in the line-up; she could be positioned differently, even from day to day, depending on who was surfing. In ethnographic research – as in other cultural settings – identities are continually made and remade (Wheaton, 2002: 253). As Belinda reflected in her previous research in surfing spaces, ‘What kind of insider was I? How and where did I fit in? How were the boundaries marked, negotiated and contested? And how did my identity change during the process?’ (Wheaton, 2002: 254). Belinda recounted that she was increasingly being identified as ‘local’ by travelling surfers; for example, being asked by a stranger ‘are you local’, or, they would apologise for getting in the way in the surf. She felt this may have been because she ‘now chats with lots of the other surfers in the line-up’ suggesting familiarity, and that ‘her surf-board is a short board and a recognisable locally made brand’. However, individuals use a multiplicity of signs to classify each other in surf spaces, including phenotypes and skin-colour, which can have an impact on acceptance (Nemani, 2015). Belinda recalled, ‘I’ve often been asked by strangers if “I am ethnic” or ‘if I’m Māori’. She reflected that this was usually before hearing her speak (revealing her English accent) and seemingly based on the way she looked, with olive skin, brown hair and brown eyes.

Belinda also recalled how while this familiarity took her time, one of her children had been accepted as one of the local surf kids (groms), at least in some situations, more quickly:

I remember this time when a traveller repeatedly dropped in⁹ on a group of local groms. One of the regular surfers, a Māori man considered to be part of the ‘local crew’ who was often chatty and friendly, noticed what was happening and decided to block the offender so the local kids could get waves; he explicitly called my son into waves which I remember surprising me.

This event reminded us of Olsen's (2017a, 2017b) research suggesting that the differences between Indigenous peoples are often de-emphasised, as are points of connection between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people including across age, gender, and place (see also Skille, 2021). Nonetheless, reflecting on her sense of belonging, Belinda wrote in her field-diary that her own sense of not-belonging in Aotearoa was felt most acutely when she was surfing, or amongst surfers.

I live here, but it made me reflect on how I don’t feel local, and am very aware of my outsider status. … when asked by surfers (foreign tourists or kiwis) where I live, or if I am ‘local’ I always respond, ‘no, I’m not local.’ Sometimes I might add that ‘I live here’, which is, I feel, quite different.

Regardless of whether identity categories are ‘externally imposed (i.e. someone defining other individuals as members of some social identity group to be in solidarity with)’ or ‘claimed internally’ by a research participant, or researcher, we cannot assume they will be a basis for belonging or ‘solidarity’ (Ross, Li and Call-Cummings, 2022: 13). Our research reiterates these complexities and flux in insider/outsider positionality perspectives in community-based sports research (Carrington, 2008; Watson and Scraton, 2018), including in setter-colonial contexts. As this discussion of our shifting positionalities illustrates, a more intersectional approach helps reveal the complex contextual, relational, dynamic ‘matrix' of relations (Olsen 2017b: 212); which complicates ideas about people, places, and communities, including across intersections of indigeneity/ethnicity, gender, age, and sporting participation.

Discussion

Our objective in this article was to show our attempts to navigate the challenges as non-Māori, White, Settler, cis-women feminist researcher striving to research with responsibility in Aotearoa. Here we summarise some key insights.

The practice of reflexivity and its limitations have had increased prominence across many fields of social inquiry. Using an intersectional reflexive approach we foregrounded positionality as dynamic, in flux and relational, showing how our own positionalities shifted and changed, across different places and social settings and over time. Through our conversations, and fieldwork we were able to interrogate our own identities and explore the multiple, complex ways in which difference or ‘otherness’ is marked and has effects both on us and on those around us. Like Olsen, we found that thinking across intersections can help in working towards ‘decentring’ the assumptions and privileges we bring to our research and our everyday practices, to put ourselves ‘outside the privileged position of defining what counts’ (2017b: 212). Our ethnographic approach was productive in helping us engage with surfers in Aotearoa's different worldviews and ways of knowing, and, over time, understandings of the politics that shape people and places. Through this process, and in conversations with Māori and Pākehā people in our community, and with the literature, we were each better able to recognise the subjective assumptions and epistemologies that underpin our own understandings of place and how these limit our capacity to know, and belong to, places and communities as White, women, Settler-colonisers.

Fieldwork is ‘personal, emotional’ identity work (Coffey, 1999: 1). We heeded advice that interventions relaying the embodied and emotional experiences, feelings, and affects of undertaking social research can enhance reflexivity (Throsby, 2017; Todd, 2021). However, we also recognised that such confessional approaches can become too self-focused (Throsby, 2017), obscuring the voices of the research participants. Furthermore, as Watson and Scraton (2018: 94) debate in their discussion of ‘reflexivity with responsibility’ drawing on hooks (1989) and Ahmed (2004), ‘White people often extend a misguided apologetic tone’ with guilt becoming a means through which to say sorry; ‘a performance rather than an action’. There is a fine line between a confessional or ‘academic guilt trip’ and the researcher illuminating their positionalities through reflexively grappling ‘intellectually and affectively’ with their subjectivity (Rossi et al., 2013: 120). However, we found that attending to how we felt, especially what Bell (2014) terms White, Settler-colonial discomfort, helped us to tease out our own assumptions about belonging, place, and surfing communities, and to better recognise how we carry them into our daily interactions and our research (see also, Slater, 2018). ‘Staying with the trouble’ (Haraway, 2016) is not about absolving our own feelings or shame – it is not a conclusion – but is about being more honestly engaged in our complicity in ongoing colonial, and other oppressive practices. Such a process of self-reflection must be a constant part of our research practice, that grows and develops with changes in the field and with ongoing engagements with different epistemologies/knowledges, theories and methodologies (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012).

We recognise, however, that it is only possible for us to understand the ongoing effects of colonisation by listening to, and learning from those most oppressed by it. As Bond, Phillips and Osmond (2015) outline, the practice of ‘really listening’ was essential to how two White men (Phillips and Osmond) could be trusted to write about Aboriginal women's sporting histories. We also found our approach ‘forced us to stop thinking and start listening’ (Rossi et al., 2013: 129). Nonetheless, our engagement with intersectional reflexivity is not an act of decolonisation itself. Methodologies that incorporate a ‘decolonizing, social justice-oriented agenda are absolutely imperative, but not sufficient’ (Moss and Hart, 2016: 439; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012; Whitinui, 2021). To account for the effects of the complicity and embodied privilege we identify in this research, ultimately requires us to do more than listen, learn, and reflect; it requires us to work with or for Indigenous communities and Indigenous methodologies (Moss and Hart, 2016; Whitinui, 2021). Later in the project, a Māori man and colleague Jordan Waiti (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngaati Maahanga, Te Rarawa) joined us as a collaborator as we moved into a phase of formal interviews with surfers, where Jordan conducted interviews with Māori men using Kaupapa Māori approaches. Therefore, over time, the project moved towards one where we could be ‘an accomplice for social change in sports sociology’ (Whitinui, 2021: 12), that better centred Māori people and their world views, providing partnerships and opportunities to develop reciprocity and solidarity with communities.

Returning to our starting point of Ratna's discussion of how to research with responsibility, she highlights that in addition to considerations of the research process, (the questions asked, how she works with the groups she researches for and about) is the ‘effect of her scholarship’ (2018: 198). How will the communities that her research is about ‘receive the work’ (Ratna, 2018: 198)? While we have tried to make explicit what we were doing, and on behalf of whom, this latter point is an ongoing source of concern for us. We have therefore progressed the research slowly, taking time to watch, listen and learn, and then presented our emerging ideas in forums where Māori scholars had the opportunity to give us feedback. To this end, we took Earl and Kidd's (2018) advice about a commitment and belief in the value of the process, whatever the outcomes, seriously.

Conclusions

In this discussion, we have argued that to understand the cultural politics of Aotearoa's surfing spaces requires localised and intersectional analyses that are rooted in the histories, ontologies, spaces, genealogies and experiences of surfers and places themselves, and requires challenging existing social and cultural ideas of whose knowledge matters. This challenge led us on a journey which explored the use of methodologies grounded in decolonial and intersectional feminist politics and approaches. We hoped to develop better understandings and practices about, what Lisa Slater (2007) calls, ‘staying well’ as settler-colonial women in the homes we make in places where our ‘desire to belong’ (para 20) can make us complicit in colonial practices. At the same time, we have kept in mind Bundjalung woman, Melissa Lucashenko's (2008) reminder that as Settlers, we can never belong on stolen land; at least, not on terms we set.

There are many caveats to this work. We certainly do not present our ideas as a ‘how-to-guide’ for engaging with settler-colonised spaces. The importance of avoiding pan-Indigenous assumptions has been widely emphasised, as is how Indigenous physical cultures are too often ‘severed from their complex historical, sociocultural and place-specific ecologies’ (Moss and Hart, 2016: 439). Nor do we make claims about how to be a ‘white conscious’ researcher, which as Watson and Scraton (2018: 95) outline is no more feasible that it is to ‘outline a distinct “feminist methodology”’. Lastly, we recognise such social justice-oriented agendas are important, but not sufficient in producing decolonising forms research (Whitinui, 2021). However, recognition and understanding that the practices and representations of sport and physical cultures, such as surfing, can be a vital part of Indigenous cultural survival and self-determination, is not solely a responsibility that should fall to Indigenous scholars (Chen and Mason, 2019; Moss and Hart, 2016; Whitinui, 2021).

Despite these limitations, we found that the collaborative methodology we adopted, particularly our written exchanges, was fruitful in our attempts to challenge our positionality as researchers, as surfers and as community members. Our hope is that through confronting our personal histories, identities, relationships and engagements in sport and community, and making at least some of the private-self public, we have contributed to discussions towards new knowledge about our research responsibilities in relation to those who have been marginalised and excluded. Doing so is not only necessary in striving for a decolonising world, but produces more ethical, nuanced, critical research that better includes the historical and ongoing settler-colonial politics of places and communities.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Belinda Wheaton

Notes

Author biographies

Belinda Wheaton is a Sociologist in Te Huataki Waiora School of Health & Te Kura Aronui School of Social Sciences University of Waikato.

Rebecca Olive is a Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University, Australia.

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The challenges of ‘researching with responsibility’: Developing intersectional reflexivity for understanding surfing,place and community in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Framing the research: surfing, local identities and place

‘Intersectional reflexivity’ as methodology

The challenges of doing ‘research with responsibility’ in Aotearoa New Zealand

‘Intersectional reflexivity’ in settler colonial places

Developing our methodology: feminist collaboration and reflexivity

Developing our co-ethnography

Where are you from?

Othering ourselves: can I be local?

Negotiating the politics of the line-up

Surf localism in Aotearoa

Negotiating the politics of the line-up: shifting positionalities

Discussion

Conclusions

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author biographies

References