Older women’s identity reconstruction in leisure spaces: a case of Guangzhou,China

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the social interactions and social relations generated by older women in the urban public leisure spaces of Guangzhou, China. The intent is to explore the identity of older women in daily leisure spaces. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and non-participatory observation and then were analysed to explore the relation among identification, leisure spaces, and interaction. The study shows the older women’s need for self-fulfilment and social interaction, as well as the need to fill emptiness are generally unfulfilled because of the alienation of urban life – the citizens share a common sense of loneliness and senselessness. Nevertheless, the inclusiveness, openness, and group honour of urban public spaces offers a good complement to the sense of isolation. In the specific socio-cultural background of Guangzhou, older women reshape or strengthen their identities through multiple factors to achieve a strong sense of belonging in daily leisure spaces.     

Gender,leisure and sport: a case-study of young people of South Asian descent

Questions of embodiment are to be crucial in shaping the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion. To explore the way that these dynamics shape the use of leisure spaces, this paper examines the mediation of Carnage UK events, organised mass student excursions around spaces of nightlife that have proved controversial in many British towns and cities. It is suggested in this paper that the discursive framing of Carnage UK events reflects specific social anxieties about disorderly bodies, invoking distinctions based on classed, sexed and gendered notions of respectability and desirability. Highlighting themes relating to carnivalesque and excessive bodies, it is concluded that conflicts over the use of leisure spaces need to be understood in relation to representations of specific social groups as figures of both desire and disgust. In making this argument, the paper alights on the student as a key figure in contemporary debates concerning nightlife, leisure and consumption.     

Location,location, location: women’s leisure in rural Australia

For many women living in rural Australia the location of both leisure and work is the family farm, a location that defines their identity as a ‘women of the land’. This paper investigates the impact of geographical location in shaping the leisure activities of rural women living in the Yass Valley Region of Australia. Using an interpretive research perspective and a process of narrative inquiry, data for the study were obtained from women born between 1946 and 1964 through open-ended, in-depth interviews. A thematic analysis of the data revealed that for these women the specific geographical location had a strong impact on the types of leisure activities available in which they were able to participate. The findings from this study suggest that for older women in rural Australia, the specific geographical location can facilitate or inhibit the degree of involvement in community leisure activities that engender social capital among older women living in these locations.     

BOOK REVIEW

No abstract available for this article.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

WELCOMING THE JAPANESE VISITOR: INSIGHTS, TIPS, TACTICS. Kazuo Nishiyama. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0-8248-1759-1, 1996, 205pages, US$22.95, paperback. Reviewed by Connie Mok.     

BOOK REVIEW

No abstract available for this article.     

BOOK REVIEW

Tourism Planning and Development. By Charles Kaiser, Jr., and Larry E. Helber. Boston, CBI Publishing Co., 1978. Pp. x + 238, indexed. Hardcover, $13.50.

Essentials of Recreational Services. By Jay S. Shivers. Lea &; Febiger, Philadelphia, 1978. Pp. x + 348. Hardcover, $15.75.

The Process of Recreation Programming. By Patricia Farrell and Herberta M. Lundegren. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1978. Pp. xii + 313, index. Hardcover, $12.95.

YV88: An Eco‐Fiction of Tomorrow. By Christopher Swan and Chet Roaman. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1977. 248 + viii, illustrated. Paperbound, $7.95.

Tourism Multipliers: The State of the Art. By Brian H. Archer. Bangor Occasional Papers in Economics (General Editor: Jack Revell), No. 11. Bangor: University of Wales Press, 1977. Pp. ix + 85.

A Good Age. By Alex Comfort. New York City, Simon and Schuster (Fireside Books), 1978. Pp. 224, indexed and illustrated. Paperbound, $5.95.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

THE MCGRAW-HILL HANDBOOK OF DISTANCE LEARNING: AN IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE FOR TRAFNERS AND HUMAN RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS. By Alan Chute, Melody Thompson, and Burton Hancock, McGraw-Hill (11 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 USA) ISBN 0-0712028-5, 1999, ix + 236 pp. (diagrams, tables, exercises, checklists, glossary, appendix, index) $39.95 (cloth). Reviewed by William N. Chernish.     

BOOK REVIEW

No abstract available for this article.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

THE PROFITABLE TRADE SHOW. By Michael R. Hough, MRH Associates (P.O. Box 290772, Wethersfield, CT 06129-0772 USA) ISBN 0-9707973-0-3, 2001, 159 pp. (checklists, formulas, glossary, appendix) Reviewed by Curtis Love.     

BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

CURRENT ISSUES IN CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION FACILITY DEVELOPMENT. By Robert R. Nelson (Editor), The Haworth Hospitality Press (10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA), ISBN 0-7890-2597-3 (hard cover), ISBN 0-7890-2598-1 (soft cover), 2004, 164-pp. Reviewed by John N. Mellon     

The Influence of Confucianism on Women’s Leisure in Taiwan

Abstract

Confucian philosophy has traditionally had a considerable influence on many aspects of the lives of the Taiwanese people. It is therefore necessary to take this belief structure into account in order to explain Taiwanese women’s leisure perceptions and behaviours. The purpose of this study is to examine this issue. The factors that constrain women’s leisure in Taiwan are identified. These categories can be broadly termed economic, domestic, social, and cultural constraints     

Exploring the emotional geography of the leisure time physical activity space with mothers of young children

Many women experience the transition to motherhood as a disconnection from the embodied and emotional self due to the demands articulated through contemporary discourses of motherhood. Using a qualitative approach, this paper explores the everyday emotional geographies of leisure time physical activity (LTPA), the emotions experienced, the physical and metaphorical spaces created, and the connections to embodied selves of mothers with young children. The findings indicate that despite discourses of intensive mothering, immobilising emotions and overwhelming tiredness, some women not only created a space for LTPA in their busy lives but were able to create connections between body, space and emotions. These connections and the emotions evoked were largely associated with spaces outside of the home. Understanding how women define and use these spaces, and negotiate and transform the self, can allow us to explore the diversity of women’s experiences of physical activity and their concepts of LTPA as ‘personal space’.     

From ‘just a swimmer’ to a ‘swimming mother’: women’s embodied experiences of recreational aquatic activity with pre-school children

Increased academic attention on the gendering of leisure pastimes in recent years has highlighted the centrality of the gendered body in influencing how leisure is accessed, experienced and transformed. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how women experience aquatic leisure activity, the second most popular form of leisure activity in the UK, and where female participation predominates. This paper presents results from research investigating the aquatic leisure experiences of 22 women, with children aged under 3, in the North-East of England. A number of key themes emerged from the data, which highlighted the centrality of the gendered, lived body as a key social construct contouring participant perceptions in the swimming pool environment. Women reflected upon their self-perceived physical deficiencies when wearing revealing swimming costumes, particularly under the critical gaze of ‘other’ bodies, whether present or imagined. The co-presence of other bodies was also central in shaping lived experiences, and the presence of ‘dependent’ children’s bodies shifted bodily intentionality away from the self towards perceived maternal responsibilities and the management of perceived risks, including ‘dirt’ and ‘germs’ and the negotiation of the tacit rules of the swimming pool. Results also suggest that the emphasis on maternal responsibility in aquatic leisure activity and timing of parent-toddler sessions could lead to reproduction of gender inequalities and the exclusion of some fathers from participation.     

Training,tracking, and traversing: digital materiality and the production of bodies and/in space in runners’ fitness tracking practices

ABSTRACT

The impact of the Quantified Self (QS) movement, or the digital quantification of the body for the purposes of self-betterment, on leisure has been well-established within the literature. Drawing on the experiences of ten women who self-track while running, this project extends the literature on running and place, and lived experiences of the QS, by considering the role of fitness tracking on embodiment and emplacement. First, I trouble the notion that running data is an objective replication of a runner’s activities, illustrating instead that fitness tracking is an accomplishment of human and non-human agencies and that this accomplishment does not always go according to the runner’s plan. Second, I complicate the idea that personal data collection is a disembodying act that turns visceral sensations into impersonal numbers. Instead, I argue that running data collection is often intertwined with visceral and experiential aspects of running, thus maintaining a connection between the body and the data that is collected on that body. In so doing, I contribute to digital leisure studies efforts to characterise the lived experiences of self-tracking, pointing in particular to the role of non-humans and place in those lived experiences.     

Examining the child’s impacts on single mothers’ leisure

With the majority of research on the experiences of single mothers focusing on motherhood as an inhibiting constraint to leisure, it is important to examine the ways in which motherhood might also enable the obtainment of a satisfactory leisure lifestyle. Our study employed a Foucauldian approach to understand constraints to leisure, in that we view constraints as always both inhibiting and enabling action. The purpose of this study was to explore three single mothers’ leisure experiences prior to and since becoming single mothers to identify the ways in which their child(ren) enables leisure practices as opposed to merely constraining them. The participants presented evidence of how their child(ren) altered both their priorities and their leisure preferences by providing them with opportunities to broaden their leisure experiences. Our research findings challenge dominant discourses that suggest that children can act only to inhibit leisure.     

Polluted Leisure

Abstract

Leisure now involves becoming-with pollution. In this article, I work with the concept of “polluted leisure” to better understand and respond to the enmeshment of pollution and leisure in late capitalist societies. Pollution and leisure are argued to be mutually shaping. Evidence for the argument is provided through a pilot study of “intoxicated” surfers at a postindustrial site. The study proceeds through a more-than-human paradigm. Nonhuman and material agencies are fused with socio-economic (specifically capitalism) and human subjectivity issues, for example, gender (specifically masculinity). A “wet ethnography,” an experimental multimedia transdisciplinary methodology, is employed to notice and articulate the dynamic complexity. It is concluded that the busyness of pollution complicates leisure discourses that bifurcate nature and society, natural and artificial, subject and object that shape environmental politics, sustainability efforts, and notions of wellbeing achieved through encounters with Blue Spaces.     

Khat-chewing in liminal leisure spaces: British-Somali youth on the margins

Khat-chewing, a controversial leisure activity within the Somali diaspora in Britain, has received little attention within the academic field of Leisure Studies. This paper reports on ethnographic research to provide insights into the unique locations where young British-Somali men chew khat, exposing the liminal qualities of such localities. The paper begins with an overview of the contentious position khat-chewing occupies within Somali communities in Britain, highlighting reasons why young British-Somali men hide their association with the leisure practice. The discussion that follows considers how young male khat users conceptualise spatial environments, exposing how these locations temporarily produce a dual sense of privacy and sociality. The ambiences of such temporary leisure spaces remain open to the prospect of discovery, resulting in the use of discretionary tactics to maintain a sense of secrecy. In this context, we discuss how khat-chewing offers a sense of cultural identity and belongingness while also marking young British-Somali men as outsiders – even within their own communities.     

Being Together in Urban Parks: Connecting Public Space,Leisure, and Diversity

Western countries are facing serious political issues regarding integration and social cohesion in multicultural societies and migration. Dutch society is engaged with these issues in the context of current racial tensions and conflicts. The government recently introduced policy measures to foster interactions between Dutch natives and ethnic migrant groups to promote integration. This research explores the extent and nature of interethnic interactions by focusing on leisure activities in the public spaces of ethnically mixed neighborhoods. Observations and semi-structured interviews are used to gather information about the interactions in and the meaning of urban public spaces. Results show that although not many interethnic interactions occurred, people from various ethnic backgrounds valued being together in parks.     

Sensing the outdoors: a visual and haptic phenomenology of outdoor exercise embodiment

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning of academic interest in exercise embodiment issues, including a developing field of phenomenologically inspired analyses of the lived body experience of physical activity and exercise. Calls have been made for researchers to explore the sensory dimension of such embodiment, and a corpus of sensory ethnographic studies is now beginning to grow, focusing on the ways in which people engage in ‘making sense of the senses’ within a sociocultural framework. This article contributes to a developing body of phenomenological-sociological empirical work on the sensory dimension, by addressing the lived experience of organised physical activities in ‘natural’ outdoor leisure environments. We draw upon the findings from a two-year ethnographic study of a Welsh national physical activity programme, ‘Mentro Allan/Venture Out’, which aimed to increase physical activity levels amongst specific ‘target groups’. Based on fieldwork and on interviews (n?=?68) with Programme participants, here our analytic focus is upon the visual and the haptic dimensions of sensory engagement with organised outdoor leisure activities, including experiences of ‘intense embodiment’.