The Deep Duck Dive Podcast

In this episode, Glen interviews Andy Mason, comix artist, author of  What's So Funny: Under the Skin of South African Cartooning  (Double Storey, 2010) and surfer about his latest underground comix,  Apocalypse WOW! Revisited  (2025). There are several authorial identities that shadow Andy, and you may also know him as N.D. Mazin or Pooh! And Poynton Shute, as you will hear in this episode, is at...

Love it, hate it, ambivalent, only when desperate, all-time favourite - every Cape Town surfer has an opinion on Muizenberg! In a bit of a break from our planned episodes, we're starting what will (hopefully) be a mini-series chatting to local surfers about Muizenberg - their history and experiences at the beach, and their thoughts, feels and opinions about it, personally or in the context of surf...

In this episode, we discuss the development of the current heteronormative culture in mainstream surfing, tracking its historical connection to colonialism, Christianity, and capitalism, and how that's resulted in a space that's often very unwelcoming for anyone who isn't cisgendered and heterosexual. We then look at how queer surf groups have developed their own safe spaces, as well as how most m...

In this episode we continue our deep duck dive into the history of surfing in Africa as part of wider scholarly work within critical surf studies and the blue humanities. This episode is Part 2 of a two part series on the topic. Part 2 focuses on surfing in Africa during the modern era, from c. early 1900s to the present. If you have not listened to Part 1, which covers surfing in during the colon...

In this episode we dive into the history of surfing in Africa as part of wider scholarly work within critical surf studies and the blue humanities. This episode is Part 1 of a two part series on the topic. We focus primarily on the history of surfing in West Africa, which has colonial records of African aquatic activities. This history draws on the historical work of Kevin Dawson which explores, a...

In this episode, we discuss the issue of fairness in sport, and how a term that sounds neutral is in fact heavily politicised. We start with the definition of fairness in sport generally, and how many factors it does not include, particularly in terms of access. We then turn to discussing fairness in surfing in particular, and how loaded the term is, given that surfing is a subjectively judged spo...

In this episode we discuss why history matters, who makes surfing history, in what forms surf history is produced (from the surf media and surf films to surf museums), and the uses of surfing history. We discuss Kevin Dawson's Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and how Dawson adds to the historiography of Atlanic Africans, the W...

In this introductory episode of the The Deep Duck Dive Podcast, we introduce you to the podcast and ourselves as academics living and surfing in the global South (South Africa). The podcast seeks to engage with the oceanic turn in the global South by focusing on issues that matter within surfing as a lifestyle sport. As co-hosts, we have approached podcasting as forms of public pedagogy and public...