Pandemic Leisure - Mehnaaz Momen (original) (raw)

A People's Future of Leisure Studies: Leisure with the Enemy Under COVID-19

Leisure Sciences, 2020

To those of us who have been consistently critical of leisure, we have mapped our critique of leisure onto discussions of leisure as a concept, as a tool, or as a social construct in society that has had serious implications on the gendered, the racialized, and the classed as disposable. Leisure is a life-politic that hides: dominant lifestyles, harmful environmental engagement, and political regimes. But in the midst of pandemic, there are two enemies, at the mirco- and macro-level to the life of a person via leisure that are becoming exposed at this time: 1) Person to Person; and, 2) The State to Person. With the coronavirus pandemic, it reveals a need to depart from a happiness and titillation orientation of leisure, and more a collective life-giving requisite in our research, instruction, and advocacy. For with COVID-19, leisure (as it is predominantly conceived) is the enemy.

The Concept of Leisure as Culture-dependent–Between Tradition and Modernity

Journal of Cultural and Religious Studies, 2014

The article deals with the concept of leisure in Israel in terms of time, activity, state of mind, and Jewish values. The purpose of the study is to examine changes in how leisure is conceived in Judaism and the differences in the secular and religious conception of leisure, and the special relationship between leisure, work, and religious obligations and tradition. The study reviews the factors that have shaped the conception of leisure and its developments over time in Jewish religious society in general and in Israel in particular, which is a country with cultural foundations in both tradition and modernity, and one that strives to strike a balance between its multiple commitments to its religious roots and its modern democratic nature. The study proceeds to discuss the implications of such conceptions and developments for the Israeli education system. The article may have practical implications for imparting leisure behaviors, an educational challenge involving people's attitude to leisure.

Thinking about leisure during a global pandemic

World Leisure Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic arrested the world in a dramatic manner as of March 2020. As countries placed themselves under lockdown to avoid the worst case scenarios expected from the novel virus, we witnessed economies shut down, and residents of the smallest communities to the largest cities 'shelter in place' as they could. Very quickly, a smorgasbord of disparities and privileges were highlighted and discussions, at local and global levels, began in earnest. This moment is significant in terms of providing us with insights borne of this unique opportunity to better understand diverse aspects of life on this planet, not least our knowledge of climate change and demographic vulnerabilities, but also about the state of leisure. The following Observation Paper presents a few leisure-related insights gained during the spring and summer of 2020 in Canada.

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

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

5-CONCEPTIONS of Leisure : A Historical Approach on Societies

2013

Introduction Leisure has been the focus of countless studies on contemporary society. This is due mostly to the strong correlation among leisure activities and quality of life and the social development of individuals. Although it is impossible to precisely foresee the starting point of concerning about leisure activities, it is known that those have accompanied man ever since the beginning of humankind. Although leisure has been the focus of studies in different areas, it should be studied from the precept that man is a biophysicosocial being, and his biological, psychological and sociological characteristics cannot be dissociated. An investigation concerning leisure can reveal several characteristics that show the social and cultural context of a society. Eventually leisure is conceived as a synonym of free time, nevertheless, such proposition is not true. Leisure activities are practiced during free time, but free time is not completely fulfilled with activities characterized as ...

Purveyors of One Health: The Ecological Imperative Driving the Future of Leisure Services

Leisure Sciences

The coronavirus pandemic, for all of its damage to human health and well-being, has brought to light the wisdom underlying the idea of One Health, whose advocates reason that health is a reciprocal relationship between our species and the environment that sustains us. What is good for people should also be good for the environment, and what is good for the environment should also be good for people. Their preferred future is one in the same. As the recent days, weeks, and months have also shown, leisure is not necessarily a cure for what ails us. Indeed, leisure pursuits may have contributed to the pandemic's spread. What, then, are we to make of leisure in the time of the coronavirus? We believe it is a fundamental lesson in ecology.

Leisure and culture – the (in)visible link in modern societies

World Leisure Journal, 2011

Leisure and culture Á the (in)visible link in modern societies Overview: culture and creative leisure Leisure often evokes ideas synonymous with different modes of easy living: entertainment, distraction, sports and relaxation, including tourism. As the antithesis of labour, leisure is thus often perceived as a time of luxury, idleness and inefficiency. But, although powerful, this view that free time is time lost may not be accurate. Many thinkers have insisted on the idea that leisure, authentic leisure, is time dedicated to developing one's capacities, a time of learning and cultivation. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ''Leisure is time for doing something useful'' (Franklin, 1758). A life dedicated solely to work would not be a decent human life Á this is implicit in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, in its Article 28, that ''Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits'' (United Nations, 1948). In terms of human development, we could say that our bodies need rest, but that our minds need creative leisure. In terms of economic development also, equating leisure with inefficiency is questionable. Economic success is often associated with striking the right balance in the division of labour, that is production; but consumption mostly happens when people are not working, that is when they participate in the life of their cultures. In that, leisure can be credited with giving a boost to creativity, innovation and related synergies. Thus, contrary to commonly held views, leisure is a special feature of culture, be it individualised or organised. As culture determines our lifestyles, our consumption and our production patterns, we need to realise that the culture of creative leisure includes tourism, travel and vacation, fashion and dressing, eating, epicurean pleasures and hospitality, sports, reading, museums and exhibitions, media and the visual arts, concerts, opera and music. Building on this, we can give a quick account of how the leisure-culture link positively relates to different approaches to development.

Cultural leisure in the time of COVID-19: impressions from the Netherlands

World Leisure Journal

Amongst leisure practices, culture plays a fundamental role in the leisure landscape. Leisure provides opportunities for escaping daily routines of work and care, and contributes to expanding knowledge, skills and sense of belonging and self-realization. But what happens to leisure, and cultural leisure in the face of extreme scenarios? This article takes a closer looks at the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, asking in general 1) what we can observe in cultural leisure in times of COVID-19, and, more specifically, 2) how cultural leisure practices have changed amongst students, in particular during times of pandemic. Students feel they are spending much more time studying, which has seemingly resulted in a subjective experience of increased uneasiness and even meaninglessness that pervades their daily lives. The shift in leisure practices and timings, as well as perception of time and actual time management, are seemingly disrupting normal student life. Students also benefited from digital cultural initiatives by artists, museums, festivals, and other cultural agents. The constraints of the lockdown also propelled forms of creativity in their leisure practices.