This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of gender experiences in a New Zealand surf culture. I employed the methods of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and focus groups to accumulate in-depth and descriptive qualitative data from the men and women who surf in the community of Raglan. I was especially interested in the rules surrounding the act of lining up - a systematic etiquette used to queue for waves. I inquired about surfers' struggles when lining up to deepen my understanding of the cultural behaviour of surfing and to help reveal implicit rules underpinning surf etiquette. As a female surfer, I was especially interested to understand the gender-relations between men and women in the waters in which I participated in. I discovered that subtle rules pertain to different groups of surfers and group emerged based on 'other' surfer characteristics. Although gender surfaced as a characteristic way of sorting surfers into groups, gender did not stand out more critical than others revealed throughout the research process. What was evident throughout the research was that men and women experience more commonalities in their surfing experiences than differences. Therefore, this research shows how the waves become a contested spaces for surfers and how surf culture serves as a site for resistance to gendered identities in contemporary Western society.

The aim of this study was to examine surfers ́ experiences of surf culture in sweden and all over the world how this compares to the rest of the world. The overall research questions for this study were ”How do the surfers experience the culture in Swedish surfing” and ”How do the surfers experience the Swedish surf culture compared to abroad”? In order to answer these questions in the study, five Swedish surfers were interviewed about their experiences. The data was analyzed and categorized into different themes by drawing on Bourdieu ́s concept of field, capital and habitus. The result of the study shows that the surfers thoughts, feelings and experiences was very much the same for how they look at the surfing culture both in Sweden and abroad. They all highlighted key elements of surfing culture and identeties as related to nature experiences. In conclusion the surfers also had a clear picture about their thoughts about nature experiences, hierarchy and localism.