BOOK REVIEWS

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the meanings recreationists tenting at an agricultural fair associated with the settings in which their fair experience occurred. Using a symbolic interactionist framework, our analysis of data collected through onsite observation and using photo-elicitation guided interviews illustrated that informants' place meanings were the product of interactive processes involving the individual, their social world and the physical setting. These interactions elicited meanings tied to place that were largely independent of the physical attributes that defined the setting. Most significant were specific place experiences shared with family and close friends. The importance attached to these relationships and experiences were embedded in the spatial contexts that encapsulated informants' fair experience. Findings from this investigation shed light on the social construction of place meaning within a built environment.     

Place Meanings Ascribed to Marine Settings: The Case of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Using data collected from in-depth interviews of recreational visitors to Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, place-related meanings ascribed to a marine environment are described. The usefulness of using symbolic interactionism to understand the creation of these meanings is also assessed. Ten meaning-themes emerged (aesthetic beauty, lack of built infrastructure/pristine environment, abundance and diversity of coral and other wildlife, unique natural resource, facilitation of desired recreation activity, safety and accessibility, curiosity and exploration, sense of connection to the natural world, escape from the everyday, and experiences with family and friends), and evidence supporting the utility of symbolic interactionism was identified. Using these findings, researchers may be better able to identify place meanings and the processes that create them.     

Who's on the tourists' menu? Exploring the social significance of restaurant experiences for tourists

Taking a Consumer Culture Perspective, this paper explores the co-production of meaning among participants in tourists' restaurant experiences. Responding to criticisms that interpreting consumer behaviour should focus both on the individual and also on the collective context of consumption (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011), our research explores the social significance of these experiences and how they feed into the tourist's identity project. 34 ethnographic interviews are led with a view to exploring how tourists co-produce meaning within their group and also with staff and other patrons in the context of restaurant experience and these are followed up with a further 57 semi-structured interviews. Restaurant experiences are shown to be both rich and complex in social meanings. Thematic analysis leads to the identification and discussion regarding four contexts where social meanings are co-produced, namely sharing experiences, family togetherness and transmission, cultural guidance and customer-to-customer interaction.     

南京熙南里历史文化街区体验价值增值路径分析

游客体验及其体验价值是历史文化街区旅游开发研究的重要内容之一。以小红书App分享的熙南里历史文化街区照片为研究数据，采用质性研究方法提取照片隐含的价值要素，并基于凝视心理活动分析框架构建游客体验价值的增值路径。研究表明：（1）熙南里历史文化街区的体验价值体现在功能价值、享乐价值和符号价值3个层级；（2）历史文化街区可以通过游览体验和视觉选择两条路径实现享乐价值和符号价值的增值，进而间接提升其功能价值；（3）节庆活动、文化演艺活动和娱乐体验活动的参与程度与享乐价值直接相关，符号价值则主要通过打卡和探店等行为提升社会声望价值，游客视觉选择的网红符号形象强于历史文化符号。基于此，研究从功能价值、享乐价值和符号价值三方面为历史文化街区提出具有普适性的提升策略。     

“China,why not?”: serious leisure and transmigrant runners’ stories from Beijing

The purpose of this study was to examine how amateur, serious distance runners negotiate their running practices upon transnational migration to China. Despite the extensive body of research into expatriate experiences and adaptation, serious leisure as a site where meaning-making occurs has not been studied in existing research. Through interviews with five female and two male expatriates, we studied the ways in which Western runners brought meaning to the transition experience and negotiated meanings and bodily practices associated with running. Through narrative analysis, we identified three core narratives of migration (possibility, necessity and growing up) and two emergent narratives (community and running to feel like oneself) about shifting meaning in running. We conclude with implications for future research in serious leisure and migration studies.     

Psychological contributions to the study of leisure—Part one

In this paper, the reasons for the current popularity of multiplex cinemas as sites of nighttime leisure and recreation in the UK is explored. By definition, such cinemas offer a choice of films and viewing times, are usually located in a peripheral urban location and provide free and plentiful parking. Drawing on interviews conducted in Leicester (UK), it is argued that multiplexes are popular with particular audiences because they provide a form of ‘going out’ that facilitates the maintenance of bodily comfort and ontological security. The paper accordingly concludes that we can only understand the appeal of multiplex cinemas by considering the embodied geographies of cinema going - a leisure practice that involves the consumption of place as well as the visual consumption of film.     

An exploration of the substitutions of British pub consumers during the COVID-19 crisis

This research draws on substitution theory to understand how British pub consumers describe their substitutions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. A two-stage research method design is adopted, with an exploratory netnography stage followed by 13 semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper insight. Five themes emerge that are either direct substitutions for the physical closing of the pub venues (online social drinking and pub-dating alternatives), or they were indirect effects of the substituting venues (in-the-home drinking, different drinks in the home and no work-related substitutions). The findings show that drinking in pubs is a functional as well as a symbolic act. Key stakeholders are recommended to remain in contact with customers through blended online and offline activities to help keep the pubs relevant to them. This will benefit the pub sector long after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.     

Going to the movies: cinema development in Singapore

Using readings of Foucault's heterotropia and Friedberg's imaginary mobility, this paper analyses movie-going as leisure practice. In highlighting the paucity of research in this area, the paper argues that such practice should be understood as a symbolic interaction between people's behaviour and the spaces that they occupy. This theorization is applied to Singapore, where per capita movie-going is amongst the highest in the world. The paper illustrates how, in Singapore, the development of cinemas has been used to underpin land use policies associated with the relocation of residential areas and social policies related to the growth in consumerism. While effectively alienating older audiences, the paper argues that the spatial and cultural metonymy of the cinema with other primary consumption sites – the mall and the fast food outlet – offers young people reassurance about the growing centrality of consumerism to contemporary social life in Singapore. We argue that the cinema offers a temporary escape from the regulation of social life – access to ‘deviant’ space. However, this same consumerism that facilitates such access simultaneously denotes conformity with the dominant ideology: acceptance of the heterotropic possibilities – and limitations – of cinema and movie-going as leisure practice.     

Connections: Integrated Meanings of ATV Riding among Club Members in Maine

Off-highway vehicle (OHV) riding is one of the fastest growing recreation activities in the United States. Little research has examined the nature of recreational activity from the perspective of all-terrain vehicle (ATV) riders. Understanding leisure and recreation activity involves exploring how people interpret experiences and how experiences are viewed as meaningful. Nineteen semi-structured interviews with members of ATV clubs in the state of Maine provided data for analysis. The three themes that emerged are connecting with nature, others, and self. This study demonstrates that ATV riders share meanings with other types of outdoor recreationists. Future research should expand into the social aspects of ATV riding and address meanings in the context of related constructs.     

When sea becomes home

This paper speaks to the home/away debate in tourism research through a case study of leisure boating. Practice theory and affordance theory, participant observation and interviews with boaters touring or departing from Bohuslän, Sweden are used to illustrate how changes in material affordances and material setup co-transform practices and meanings. Through the introduction of house-like facilities, powered by the boat’s engines and employing home skills, some boats afford a family/single person a more comfortable and independent “stay at home” on the sea than in the past, while boating resembling camping is becoming an ex-practice. However, boats continue to afford mobility, for which boating skills are required. This paper thus challenges the theoretical opposition in tourism studies between home and away.     

Young people with intellectual disabilities and sport as a leisure activity: notions from the Finnish welfare society

Although disability sports have recently received positive attention, little concern has been directed towards them in youth research. In this article, we discuss the free-time sports in which youth with intellectual disabilities engage as a part of their leisure and their association with their peers. We maintain that every young person has a principal right to leisure and question what kinds of access youth with intellectual disabilities have to local sports communities in the Finnish context. Our empirical data consist of notes collected during sports training; interviews with young sports participants, their supervisors, and their parents; and online survey responses. Almost all sports are equally accessible to everyone; however, practical engagement in sports is not equally easy for everyone because long distances, lack of transportation, unsuitable sporting occasions and teams, or incapable coaches limit individuals’ participation possibilities. Furthermore, symbolic structures, such as neglectful attitudes, restrict the visibility of youth with intellectual disabilities in leisure sports. In many ways, supporting networks become significant when access to sport is under scrutiny. The most important enabling and restricting factors are families’ symbolic and material capital, as well as the unequal, poorly guided, and occasional leisure possibilities in different localities.     

“Girlfriend getaway” as a contested term: Discourse analysis

All-female leisure travel is a fast growing tourism market segment that is frequently called “girlfriend getaways.” This study explored the meanings associated with the “girlfriend getaway” term, using discourse analysis to understand the ways women build significance, activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections, and sign systems and knowledge with respect to it. Eleven focus groups and 15 individual interviews were conducted with 83 American and Canadian women. The analysis revealed that “girlfriend getaway” is a term with contested and polysemous meanings. While some women found it to be adequate, accurate, cute, and reflective of their all-female tourist experiences, others described it as stereotypical, narrow/claustrophobic, “pink,” inadequate, and unreflective of their experiences. At times, the same symbolic meanings attracted some women but alienated others. Thus, tourism marketers need to identify and engage with different strands within their female clientele to ensure that their strategies appropriately respond to various preferences and lifestyles.     

Crafting Well-Being: Meanings and Intentions of Stay-at-Home Mothers' Craft-Based Leisure Activity

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the meanings of and intentions behind craft-based leisure activities among stay-at-home mothers. The study attempts to shed light on the meanings of craft in relation to the participants’ and their families’ well-being. This qualitative study was based on the written narratives of 34 stay-at-home mothers, ages 23–40. The meanings of craft-making was described by home centeredness, items as personal fingerprints, mental resources, personal growth and identity, and social relationships. The intentions behind crafting were to help the stay-at-home mothers escape their daily worries, to pursue craft as a form of enjoying their family-centric life, and to enhance self-realization without the added stress of having to do so while negotiating their family's needs. The findings revealed that although the participants’ intentions were to enhance their subjective well-being, they in fact reflected their concern for the well-being of their families.     

Why immigrants travel to their home places: Social capital and acculturation perspective

This paper presents an inductive analysis of the meanings and dynamics of immigrants' travel to their places of origin from the perspective of social capital and acculturation. The narratives from in-depth interviews with 20 informants with different backgrounds vividly portray the dynamic and subjective life experience of the Mainland Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. The results thematically (re)presents their experience in terms of the “horizontal and vertical changes in social capital and its effects on travel decisions and acculturation, its influence on travel decisions, the effects of social capital on acculturation, and the influence of constraints on immigrants' travel.” Quintessentially, the inductive analysis sheds light on the meanings and dynamics of the immigrants' travel to their home places. For future studies, observations from this interpretive approach could be augmented by empirical testing and measurement of the interrelationships among social capital, acculturation, constraints, and travel decisions pertinent to Mainland Chinese immigrants traveling from Hong Kong to their places of origins.     

Capital building through gym work

This research employed Pierre Bourdieu’s model of capital accumulation to frame the benefits conferred by gym use. Thirteen participants from four gyms in Melbourne, Australia, were purposefully selected for in-depth interviews, where detailed case histories were solicited, and data were analysed using a narrative coding model. Results indicated that the two most highly valued forms of capital were bodily capital and psychological capital. All 13 participants cited gym work as the means by which they built a better looking and better functioning body. They also advised that gym work had strengthened their self-esteem and psychological resilience, which, in turn, enabled them to present themselves more confidently in their various social roles outside the gym. In contrast, these 13 gym users accrued low levels of cultural and symbolic capital through their activities, and contrary to previous studies, also secured little social capital from gym work.     

Tourists perceptions of World Heritage Site and its designation

This exploratory study clarifies visitors' perceptions, meanings and conceptualizations associated with the World Heritage Site designation. In-depth open as well as semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 participants. The findings indicate that WHS designation has several effects relevant to the understanding of the concept of world heritage, and visitors' experiences at such sites. The findings' implications are discussed in terms of both theory and practice.     

A multicultural retreat in exotic serenity: interpreting temple stay experience using the Mandala of Health model

Temple stay is a creative form of religious tourism in Korea that offers an authentic local experience at a Buddhist temple. This study is to describe the experiences of international participants during their overnight temple stay. Based on field research with in-depth interviews, this study result indicates that participants regarded temple stay as a multicultural retreat in a religious and therapeutic setting to promote their ultimate wellbeing. In the intersection of culture, religion, and tourism, this study offers a framework to understand the essence of temple stay experience to modern individuals based on the Mandala of Health model.     

Dramaturgical performances and work-leisure dynamics in rural-to-urban domestic migrations

Situated against the backdrop of the dramatic socio-economic transformation of the Chinese society that propelled mass rural-to-urban migrations, this study focused on a group of female migrant workers who worked in the city as paid live-in-caregivers. The research explored how their work and leisure lives were related to their self-perceptions, self-expressions and social interactions. A total of 18 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female migrant workers who had moved from rural areas of China to the capital city of Beijing and worked as home caregivers were conducted. By adopting Goffman’s front stage and back stage model and bridging the literature in the fields of migration, caregiving, and leisure, the study examined the experiences and personal meanings of being a migrant caregiver and the strategies and practices migrant caregivers used to present and assert themselves in the everyday life of migration.     

旅游纪念品符号化生产与再生产——以美国黄石国家公园纪念品为例

通过在美国黄石国家公园实地调研、网络文本信息搜寻、对同游者以及随机抽取去过该地并购买过纪念品的游客进行现场和网络访谈,发现:旅游纪念品对购买者有着记忆、证明等意义,是经由供给者与购买者两个不同实体,在不同阶段对其符号化意义的生产与再生产;旅游纪念品符号化意义生产过程中,再生产必须以初次生产的成功为基础。也就是说:旅游纪念品供给者和购买者必须首先将旅游纪念品符号化为“旅游目的地形象”,之后,纪念品购买者再基于自身需求符号化为记忆、证明等意义,这一过程是连续的、递进的;纪念品购买者周边的微社会群体对旅游纪念品记忆、证明等意义具有增强作用。     

Exploring the Motivations,Experiences and Meanings of Camping in National Parks

Camping in natural areas such as national parks is an important social activity and provides a way of reconnecting with nature to achieve personal, social, and health benefits. Experience and meanings are not well understood regarding camping in natural areas, and recent research is limited. The aim of this qualitative study was to examine the motivations, experiences, and higher-order meanings of camping in two national parks in Western Australia, with a particular focus on the last of these. Important associated motivations included the “push” factor of addressing feelings of disconnection from nature, others, and self; and the “pull” factor of experiencing nature. Re-creation, reconnection and reaffirmation were key higher-order meanings. A deeper understanding of the camping experience highlights the importance of the people-natural environment relationship and shows how camping can benefit individuals and society.