AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FELLOW & SURFER
Rebecca Olive is an Australian Research Council Fellow at The University of Queensland. She has been researching women’s surfing for over 15 years, including intersections across recreational surfing, social media and localism.
Rebecca’s currently project is, ‘Moving Oceans’, which explores the role of surfing and ocean swimming in how we develop relationships to nature. As well as writing research publications, she has published a blog, ‘Making Friends With the Neighbours’ since 2006. She is active in the Institute for Women Surfers and supports the Aotearoa Women’s Surfing Association.
Rebecca will be presenting ‘The Politics in Surfing’ in a panel discussion with Fran:
Surfing is never just surfing is it?
When we pull up to the beach and we’re looking at the lineup, whether at our local break or at a place in the corners of remote Indonesia, our decision to paddle out and how we’ll be when we’re out there is shaped by who we are and what we represent.
In a panel discussion with Fran Miller and Rebecca Olive, we will unpack the political underpinnings of placemaking, gender and colonialism in surfing. This is a chance to hear about Fran Miller’s recent work in documenting life in the Pacific and Indonesia and exploring both her own identity as a Korean Australian woman and the way colonialism continues to impact the lives of people in some of the most remote parts of the world.
Rebecca Olive offers an analysis into gendered experiences in Southeast Queensland and the Northern Rivers and the way we surfers build a sense of place, often as outsiders, and the politics that underpin our experiences.
