Becoming Political: An Expanding Role for Critical Leisure Studies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Leisure/Loisir, 2021
Recent calls for papers in numerous academic journals within leisure studies have focused on a global and nation-specific climate that leans towards autocratic policy development, fascist rhetoric as the norm, and a greater expansion of a neoliberal philosophy. A critical leisure approach critiques leisure studies and leisure research for what the construction of leisure is in its origin and in its function. The aim of this discussion is to present counter, critical narratives to leisure studies. Two hundred and ninety-two texts that focused on the ‘critical’ in leisure were read and analyzed through critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. The analysis resulted in a historiography that articulates four key alternative or counter traditions: Critical Leisure Studies; New Leisure; Post-Leisure Studies; and Anti-Leisure, which could aid leisure studies into taking on a role as a ‘new’ cultural studies.
Political ecologies of leisure: a critical approach to nature-society relations in leisure studies
A considerable amount of leisure studies scholarship over the past half-century implicates 'nature' taking a prominent role in leisure studies scholarship. Most often in leisure-oriented literature, nature takes the form of an inert, unproblematic backdrop upon which human leisure experiences take place, in deference to the individual experience in nature. Political ecology is a critical approach that foregrounds nature-society relationships, noting the substantial role of political economy in influencing human behaviour, ecological conditions, and the dynamic interactions between the two. While political ecology scholarship regularly addresses leisure activities, settings, and perspectives, and leisure studies scholarship often considers nature-society interconnections, rarely has there been explicit connections between political ecology and leisure. In this paper, we state the case that in the Anthropocene, where nearly all ecological interactions are affected by human influences, it is appropriate for leisure studies scholars to more fully incorporate political ecology into research and praxis.
Echoes of Leisure: Questions, Challenges, and Potentials
Journal of Leisure Research, 2000
Gregorian calendars, love of linear and progressive forms, Christian beliefs, and fascination with "new" beginnings all intermix to form the concept of millenium. Calendars emerging from Tibetan, Islamic, Hawaiian, Mayan, and other traditions mark no day of celebration or sorrow for January 1, 2000 (and whether this is the first day of the new millenium is still contested). Without conscious attention to the plurality of calendars, concepts of time, historical events, and holidays, it is tempting to view the millenium as an "inevitable given," a reality, a natural occurrence. As any good leisure scholar understands, the millenium provides a wonderful excuse for celebration, contemplation, and play. However, thoughtful attention to plurality, opens new possibilities and engenders other concerns and questions. How do we, in both large and small ways, render invisible other views while celebrating one, albeit dominant, perspective? How do we become accountable for validating and giving support to a single interpretation of reality? Can leisure become focused on fulfillment and re-figuring social bodies/ minds/ souls? Can leisure become inevitably tied to notions of collaborative interpretations rather than predominant and increasingly individual, subjective conscience? I am particularly concerned about creating ethical, meaningful leisure in a paradoxical world of plurality and commonality. How do we, as leisure scholars and practitioners, connected to, or reinforcing, dominant structures and processes, maintain and honor the presence, values, and critiques of alternative perspectives? What leisure praxis will enable "games of truth and power" to be practiced with minimal domination and maximal freedom? How can we transfigure our relationship to powers and knowledges that render us calculable and entangled in harm to others? Seemingly innocent millenium celebrations provide resonance with profound conflicts related to power, dominant structures, and alternative perspectives of leisure. The definitions, parameters, and actions related to leisure are constructed and molded by invisible forces related to cultural dynamics, power relations, collective processes, and societal frameworks. It is no accident, therefore, that freedom and individual perspectives and behaviour are essential features of leisure praxis
Consuming Leisure not so Leisurely: Political Economy of Leisure and Desire
2018
The paper examines the contemporary contours of leisure through an inclusive parameter by exploring the ‘frontiers’ of leisure that signifies the fluidity of leisure practices. Mapping the chaotic Indian leisure landscape through the theoretical framework of political economy of leisure and desire, and leisure as an object of desire, the paper raises the question of consumption and the ownership of what one consumes within the social class locations. These concerns are explicated through an examination of political economy of leisure and desire; consumption of leisure; colonialism, elite, subaltern and leisure; post-colonial entangled contexts; two case studies on subaltern and leisure; and consuming desirable ‘leisure for religion’ unleisurely by exploring the social landscape under perceived/real religio-communal siege-like situation with reference to the controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik; and the question of Halal meat.
Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory
1999
Leisure studies is like an old clock that stops ticking from time to time and needs to be shaken to get it working once again, and if that does not do the trick, opened up and disassembled, its gears, springs, sprockets and levers cleaned, oiled, and its 'movement'the clock's condition embodied in its 'tick-tock' soundmade to run in an even balanced beat. Unlike clockmenders, scholars overhaul subject fields by leaving parts behind that after decades of use have become unnecessary to their workings, replacing these with new ones. They cannot afford to be sentimental when it comes to replacing old parts; if getting the clock back 'in beat' is the objective, then it is best to replace what no longer works. This gives us the impression that things in our subject field change while ostensibly remaining the sameeven if this is not really the case. Just over two decades ago, Chris Rojek published Decentring Leisure, the fruit of his attempt to overhaul leisure studies. This book changed our understanding of leisure forever. Like clockmending, it is a study that draws parallels with deconstructionism. This term is derived from the work of Jacques Derrida, a philosopher with a uniquely sharpened ability for remedying subject fields that have lost their beat. If the job of the clock-mender is to disassemble the 'movement' in a clock, work on it, and then put it all back together again, the job of deconstructionism is to disassemble and reassemble subject fields; that is, take them apart, to not only demonstrate how they are necessarily contingent to time and place, but also to reveal the gaps and absences they render unintelligible. Deconstructionism works with the assumption that all subject fields contain hidden and unexpected meanings, which often signify points of resistance. In this regard its central aim is to show how subject fields do not come up to scratch under their own terms of reference. A successful deconstruction not only changes a subject field, but it also conceives new ways of seeing. Rojek's study is a deconstruction of leisure studies in the sense that not only does it call for a critique of taken for granted assumptions made about leisure, but it also prompts changes in our perceptions about the potential and the limits of leisure studies. Leisure studies after Decentring Leisure was supposed to be business as usual and a return to normality but in reality it was just the opposite. It is the norm in leisure studies to adapt Tolstoy's famous sentence about families and say that good books tend to be good in the same ways. Certainly, if you encounter something that is radically different you are liable to suspect, and perhaps to go on suspecting, that it is different because it is not good. Tolstoy also wrote that the greatest threat to life is habit. Habit, he argued, destroys everything around us. By familiarizing us to the point that we no longer really see anymore, habit destroys our critical faculties. In his important book Thinking Sociologically (1990) the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that the cure for habit is defamiliarization. In opening up leisure studies to new and previously unanticipated possibilities Decentring Leisure restores leisure studies for us, by remedying the blindness, so that we come to see what it is that is important about leisure in the contemporary world. In so doing it brings the furniture of the critical imagination back into focus. The idea of 'decentring' leisure not only assumes that leisure studies is a discursive formation that exists independently of individual leisure scholars, but also that it should go about its day-today business by undermining the significance of its own unifying centre
Leisure as an object of governance.docx
Leisure/Loisir, 2019
[First version - revisions submitted and accepted: Due for publication towards the end of 2019] Leisure as an object of governance in UK election manifestos, 1945 to 1983 For most working people, the decade following the Second World War saw a substantial change in the amount of leisure time they had available and in how that time could be accessed. Prior to the cessation of hostilities periods of extended leave had been few and, for the majority, determined by employers, who would stipulate when the small amount of holiday time available could be taken. The dominant model was that of factory closure, in whole or part, and large groups of workers taking their annual leave together, on works trips that were frequently organised by their employers. During the 1950s the amount of paid leave that could be taken had risen substantially. There was greater freedom to both select when leave could be taken and for that selection to be on an individual basis. That, coupled with a relative increase in basic disposable income for many working people, average earning increased by around 40% between 1950 and 1965, resulted in a growing demand for leisure resources. It is in this period that we also find the political parties vying for power at general elections begin to address leisure as a legitimate area of governmental policy. Using a lexical frequency analysis to locate instances where leisure and recreation are discussed, in combination with historical contextualisation of the imaginary of leisure articulated in the text, this paper will consider how leisure was construed as an object of governance in election manifestos by the Conservative and Labour) parties between 1945 and 1983. The period between 1951 and 1964 saw a growth in interest, from both parties, in addressing leisure and recreation as an object of governmental policy; however, since then, its place on the political agenda has been more turbulent and partisan. From 1974 to 1983 it was the Labour party that maintained an interest in developing leisure policy as part of its electoral agenda, whilst moving away from an orientation that required substantial governmental intervention. In conclusion, this paper will reflect on the additional insights into the imaginary of leisure as an object of governmental policy afforded by the lexical analysis of text. Keywords: Leisure Policy; Elections; Manifestos; Lexical analysis; the Imaginary of leisure. [NB: I will be uploading the tables etc. in the teaching documents folder]
A People's History of Leisure Studies: Leisure, the Tool of Racecraft
Leisure Sciences, 2019
The pernicious existence of race serves as the underlying force in modern societies. As such, the aim of this discussion is to postulate that leisure is a tool of racecraft: 1) the articulation of power, 2) the erection of places of demarcation, and 3) reification of the racial order. What is presented here is in one part a re-examination of seminal texts on Race in leisure studies and another part a case study of the 1919 Chicago race riots and the Biloxi wade-ins from 1959 to 1963. Both of these historical cases illustrate the simple act of recreational swimming in legally or socially segregated waters and pools outraged the White social order in the United States. This history is mirrored in the present day, not as another isolated horrible aside that arises from time-to-time in leisure but rather as the seemingly perpetual role of leisure to maintain the proper racial order, racecraft.
Leisure corrupted: an artist's portrait of leisure in a changing society
Leisure Studies, 1993
Theoretical arguments that leisure is the basis of any culture are available. Yet, scarcity in the literature of serious consideration of leisure in non-Western societies demonstrates that the topic has been neglected. One possible explanation for the failure to achieve progress in cultural comparisons of leisure is the lack of data. At least three approaches permit this type of comparison. This paper focuses on a literary approach by investigating how East Africa's most prominent creative writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, treats leisure in his most important English language novels. This analysis centers on two of his novels, A Grain of Wheat and Petals of Blood. The two novels are complex, intricate stories drawing heavily on Western philosophy and literature as well as African folklore. Although Ngugi suggests that leisure is the foundation of civilization, the fibre that makes the cloth of society, he portrays leisure distinctively in social terms likely to surprise those familiar with Western traditions of leisure.