PERFORMANCE, AGENCY AND CHANGE IN SURFING TOURIST SPACE

•Tourist space is continuously co-produced by tourists giving opportunities for agency and change.•Ten year longitudinal Grounded Theory study explores social construction of surfing tourist space.•Surf tourist space, ‘Nirvana’, is disembedded and traditionally ignores needs of local communities.•Over time, the agency in embodied experiences of place has led to dissolution of the protective myths of Nirvana.•Nirvana now is more inclusive of indigenous concerns but is also threatened by overcrowding.

This study seeks to advance knowledge of the production and consumption of tourist space and its implications for tourism destinations. A social constructionist approach to grounded theory was employed to investigate surfing tourist space in Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands. The construction and maintenance of a utopian surfing tourist space based on myth and dubbed ‘Nirvana’ was found to be a four-stage process that has simultaneously enchanted surfers and ignored indigenous experiences. Over the 10-year period of this study the agency implicit in embodied surfing tourists experiences of place has weakened Nirvanic myth and indigenous issues have come to light. The dilution of Nirvanic myth has also resulted in threats to Nirvana being realized with significant implications for the future of the industry.