‘It’s the Sea and the Beach more than anything for me': Local Surfer’s and the Construction of Community and Communitas in a Rural Cornish Seaside Village

Beaumont, Emily ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7318-2373 and Brown, David (2018) ‘It’s the Sea and the Beach more than anything for me': Local Surfer’s and the Construction of Community and Communitas in a Rural Cornish Seaside Village. Journal of Rural Studies, 59. pp. 58-66. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.02.003

Preview

Text (Peer Reviewed Version) 9086 Beaumont, E. and Brown, D. (2018) It’s-the-Sea-and-the-Beach-More-than-anything-for-me-Local-Surfer’s-and-the-Construction-of-Community-and-Communitas-in-a-Rural-Cornish-Seaside-Village..pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 4.0. Download (319kB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper reports on a qualitative ethnographic study undertaken on a small rural village community in Cornwall, UK with a significant population of local surfers. It focuses on these local surfers‟ interactions with the wider rural community they co-exist with, and in which ways this group might contribute to the formation, maintenance and identity of that broader rural community. The analysis presented draws together a range of broadly agreed conceptual notions of community with Victor Turner’s (1969) notion of spontaneous, normative and ideological communitas as dynamic emergent elements in what Whol (2015) refers to as a process of developing community sense through experiencing and communicating aesthetic judgments. Findings illustrate that notions of community were not restricted to a static and bounded geographical location. Rather, the village focused upon in this study was seen as a hub of a close and a wider de-territorialised community. Despite their obvious differences, there was a strong sense of communitas, community sense and aesthetic judgement between surfing locals and non-surfing locals, expressed through the sharing of experience of the inspired feelings of native place configured around relationships with the sea, the local beach, surf break and village life.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Rural Community; Ethnography; Surfing; De-territorialisation; Communitas; Aesthetic Judgment
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Applied Business & Technology
Depositing User:	Kate Greenaway
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2020 15:09
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2025 11:30
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/9086

University Staff: Request a correction | Repository Editors: Update this record