‘Living the Dream’: Surfing as Cultural Heritage on Australia’s Gold Coast

In the rapidly growing context of the Gold Coast, Queensland, residents are now trying to affirm a cultural identity that overcomes the view of the city as just a touristic resort. Surfing is playing a significant role in this process. In fact, it has served not only to promote tourism–supporting the image of ‘paradise on Earth’–but also to characterize the local landscape, define a particular ‘lifestyle’, and delineate the cultural identity of the city as a ‘surfing place’. This is clearly exemplified by the recent inclusion of the Gold Coast in the World Surfing Reserve list, which is the outcome of a longer and ongoing process of ‘heritagization’ of surfing in the region. The region’s inclusion on the list is a defining act, which has helped determine the value of surfing for the local community at a social, economic, and political level. For example, this act has stimulated environmental awareness among surfers, legitimized infrastructural interventions and promoted institutional actions. However, these heritage policies and practices also tend to reassert a predominantly white- and male-oriented rhetoric in surfing culture, despite the challenges it has been–and continues to be–subjected to by the participation among relatively ‘new’ devotees, such as women and Aboriginal surfers.