As momentum around surfing builds with over 35 million surfers globally and the sport rapidly growing in developing countries, how can we better understand the benefits of surfing and acknowledge its differential effect on minority participants, in particular for females, in diverse cultural and economic settings? Through the delivery of a surf initiative in Iran with young pioneering sportswomen, surfing has become a sport initiated by women and a medium that both challenges and connects across gender, class, ethnic and religious divides within the country.
This chapter draws from the author’s experience developing and co-creating the ‘Be Like Water’ initiative with women in Iran, a programme that draws on the notion of blue space or water environments as a powerful medium for health and wellbeing.
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Britton, E. (2017). ‘Be Like Water’: Reflections on Strategies Developing Cross-Cultural Programmes for Women, Surfing and Social Good. In L.The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 793–807.