Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

History

Major Professor

Adriana Novoa, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Julia K. Irwin, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Frances Ramos, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Lindsay E. Usher, Ph.D.

Keywords

Neoliberalism, Nicaragua, Surfing, Tourism

Abstract

During the 1970s and 1980s, as surfers were carving out new international surf spaces around the globe, Nicaragua was on a much different trajectory—one that engendered the Sandinista guerrilla insurgency that deposed a four-decade-long, US-backed dictatorship in 1979. In response, the United States waged a decade-long, low-intensity counterinsurgency against the Sandinista government. While other surfing destinations were growing in popularity, notably neighboring Costa Rica, Nicaragua was, by most accounts, considered off-limits due to the conflict. In 1990, a watershed moment fostered an environment conducive to international tourism and foreign investment. The election of Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro ushered in a time of peace unseen for decades. Chamorro’s embrace of market-driven economics created a scenario welcoming for international visitors and their foreign capital. A perhaps unforeseen beneficiary of these policies were surfers, who started gravitating to the once rural peripheries of southwestern Nicaragua. This radically changed the economic and cultural character of these historically indigenous communities. Over the course of three decades, surfing and its subculture permeated virtually all parts of these coastal pueblos, resulting in a profound and largely irreversible sociocultural and economic transformation. This dissertation places surfers and surfing at the center of this phenomenon, tracing the evolution of the Popoyo area, and the Tola Municipality more broadly, from an undeveloped stretch of Pacific coastline to an international epicenter for surf tourism and expatriate communities.

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