SURFING THE SAFETY NET

Abstract

This article traces some administrative and media constructions of Australian surfing subculture in the early 1970s. Foucault's concept of `governmentality', which is concerned with techniques and technologies of discipline, is deployed to interpret the administrative categorization process that was used to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate unemployment benefit claims. Particular attention is paid to how some of the discourses surrounding unemployment benefit compared the unemployed surfing subject unfavorably with the idealized working citizen. Not only was `the surfie element' an object of discipline but, more importantly, `youths' as a social category were made to know themselves as potentially irresponsible at a time of growing unemployment.