Karaoke’s coming home: Japan’s empty orchestras in the United Kingdom

This paper examines the introduction, adaptation and popularisation of karaoke singing in the UK. Based on ethnographic field research and interviews conducted in both Japan and the UK, the paper traces the various pathways through which karaoke hardware and software were first introduced and marketed in the UK and the social contexts and entertainment venues within which karaoke has been popularised. The ‘domestication’ of karaoke in the UK is treated as a complex and multifaceted process involving both ‘cultural’ factors related to existing traditions of singing and amateur performance, notions of individual public ‘display’ and musical preferences, for example, and the ‘local’ economic and regulatory environment into which karaoke had been adapted. As a contribution to the discourse on the relationship between ‘global’ and ‘local’ forces in cultural flows, it is argued that although Japanese karaoke producers may have been successful in globalising the karaoke concept, its popularisation as a leisure activity in the UK has involved the localisation of the production, distribution and uses of karaoke hardware and software.     

Reading Pro-Am theatre through a serious leisure lens: organisational and policy-making implications

Amateur theatre has often suffered from a stigma of incompetence, and the view that while participants enjoy their involvement, they are unable to impact on the professional realm. Recent policy from Arts Council England and major projects from the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre Wales suggest the amateur contribution is increasingly being recognised and celebrated. This article explores the emerging role of the non-professional in contemporary British theatre through the ‘Pro-Am’ initiative – whereby amateurs and professionals work collaboratively. It initially considers how serious leisure theories such as collective amateurism, flow, subjective well-being, social identity and culture of commitment can be applied to the Pro-Am theatre context and explore the challenge of negotiating the commitments of a serious leisure pursuit with participants’ ‘real lives’. Methods employed include case study, semi-structured interviews, observation and a focus group. Data are presented from the perspective of professional practitioners who facilitate Pro-Am work in regional, producing theatres and other industry experts, supported by some additional participant comments. Implications for arts organisations delivering this kind of work are then addressed. Findings reflect many of the outcomes outlined in the theory, and we conclude that the broadening of categories and the increasing popularity of Pro-Am initiatives are breaking boundaries, changing the very nature of amateurism.     

Old bodies,young hearts: a qualitative exploration of the engagement of older male amateur rugby union players in Taiwan

The world’s population is ageing. Engagement in physical activities that assist people to age in good health while enjoying quality of life are critical considerations for practitioners and policy-makers. In 1913, the sport of Rugby Union was introduced to Taiwan. As a form of recreational activity, the game became popular among- Taiwanese males. In recent years, older players have sought to facilitate their continued involvement in an activity that is normally played as a full-contact sport. Why these individuals continue to play, how they perceive their experience and how the sport has evolved to maintain their interest and active involvement are especially interesting to explore. Study participants were specifically chosen from an established Taiwanese rugby union club. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in 2013 with 15 amateur rugby players aged from 54 to 83 years. Results indicated that the main motivations for participants to continue playing was that it gave them ‘a sense of nostalgia and pride’, ‘lifelong friendship and belonging’, ‘pure joy and passion’, with considerations of being ‘mentally and physically active’, keeping up an involvement in ‘a real man’s sport’ and maintaining a sense of one’s ‘self-identity’ with ‘responsibility and commitment’ towards this chosen sport. Findings suggest that leisure providers need to be aware of the opportunities for reducing constraints and providing adaptations that allow older adults to immerse themselves in physically active pursuits integral to enjoying a fruitful ageing journey.     

Kicking against tradition: women’s football,negotiating friendships and social spaces

This article examines friendships and social networks in the context of amateur women’s football. Studies of intimacies and friendships tend to situate women’s same-sex friendships around emotional support. The aim of this research seeks to account for more depth in understanding diversity in female friendships. The traditionally masculine (football) environment is peculiarly distinctive because it contrasts with traditional spaces found in private, domestic context that have traditionally associated with the formation and negotiation of ‘feminine’ friendship identities. Utilising 10 narrative interviews, the paper examines social and friendship networks in two main areas. Firstly, although non-traditional social groupings were evident, it was apparent that some participants had to negotiate a dual private/public role. Secondly, there were friendships based on sociability and these were integral to the connectedness of groups not defined by conventionally gendered roles, defined by emotional ties, but instead on collective interest focused around playing sport. These groupings are of interest because they are contrary to conventionality that frame emotional femininity, and foreground social activities that accentuate cultural complexities rather than confine friendship groups in terms of either masculine or feminine cultural practices. Drawing on the grounded experiences of female football players, we found that female friendships are much more layered and complex than represented in broader cultural discourse.     

Music festival motivation in China: free the mind

This paper explores the extent to which music festival attendance is ‘universally’ motivated or determined by the Chinese cultural and socio-political context. A novel qualitative approach was employed comprising observation of social media conversations and ‘chat room’ interviews with members of a festival online community. Seven motivators were identified, some similar to those in Western studies but others more specific to festival-goers in Mainland China. The culturally specific motivators were identified as ‘spiritual escape’ and ‘spiritual pursuit’ and the universal motivators as ‘togetherness’, ‘love of the music’, ‘novel experience’, ‘music sharing’ and ‘educational enrichment’. This paper focuses on the two culturally embedded motivators only. The implications of the study are that, although, growing, there are still very few music festivals featuring ‘pop’ or ‘western’ style music and these few are relatively new to Chinese people. Their attendance at them is, therefore, motivated differently to attendees at similar festivals in western countries. These motivating factors are mediated by the particular social, political and cultural factors at work in this complex country. The findings indicate that although many of the motivational factors for attending a music festival appear to be universal, there are clearly factors which are culturally bound and therefore unique to the cultural context. These differences appear to be created by the social constraints, rapidly changing economy and the many contradictions inherent in modern Mainland China. These conditions create a greater contrast between everyday life in Mainland China and the liminal hedonistic space provided by the festival. Further research is needed to validate theses initial findings within China and to explore how rock music festival motivations differ in other non-western cultures.     

Localism and the Big Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries – fighting closures or empowering communities?

This paper critically examines the ‘asset transfer’ of leisure services from the public to the voluntary sector. Asset transfer might be theorised as ‘austerity localism’, in which volunteers are obliged to fill the gaps left by retreating public provision, or as ‘progressive localism’, which represents new opportunities through the localism and Big Society agendas to develop more locally responsive, cooperative and mutualist visions. In this way, asset transfer might overcome the limitations of the United Kingdom policies in which ‘Big Government’ is replaced by civic society. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel (volunteers, managers and local authority officers) at 12 leisure facilities, a grounded assessment of the nuanced balance between ‘austerity localism’ and ‘progressive localism’ is provided, including three observations. First, the main impetus for transfer was cuts in local authority budgets which stimulated the emergence of local groups of volunteers. Secondly, the transfers themselves required interaction between local government and the volunteer groups; however, the nature of the relationship and support given varied and support was limited by austerity measures. Thirdly, volunteers do not automatically fill a gap left by the state: without support transfer viability relies on the financial and social capital among volunteer groups, and this is unevenly distributed. These findings suggest that the capacity for a ‘progressive localism’ to emerge through asset transfer is limited. However, where transfer has occurred, there are some progressive benefits of volunteer empowerment and a more flexible service.     

INTERPRETATION,FILM LANGUAGE AND TOURIST DESTINATIONS: A CASE STUDY OF HIBISCUS TOWN,CHINA

The link between films and destination promotion has been well established. Less well examined is the role of ‘film language’ in the subsequent reconstruction of tourist destinations. This paper suggests that the way a film ‘speaks’ to its audience helps both shape tourists’ imaginaries of place, and the ways a place is reconstructed to meet tourist perceptions. For film tourism, ‘film language’ acts as a guidebook describing first the spaces where the film plots happened, second, shaping images of the places in an audience’s mind, and third, serving as a blueprint for the physical reconstruction of spaces to replicate the place representation shown in the film. This both meets and reinforces the perceptions held by audiences. Therefore, this paper suggests interpretation of ‘film language’ is a key to the promotion of destination image and transformation of a place. Based on the case study of the Chinese film Hibiscus Town (Xie Jin, 1986), some key parts of its ‘film language’ are interpreted with reference to the visual, and a relationship between film language and place reconstruction is discussed.     

Leisure Studies: Progress,Phases and Possibilities – An Interview with Alan Tomlinson

Analysis of commitment in long distance running has developed rapidly over the past decade. No attention has been devoted, however, to different commitment patterns of runners. This paper identifies the commitments of ‘professional level’, ‘semi-professional level’ and ‘amateur level’ long distance runners. Discriminant analysis reveals that those of amateur level have relatively weaker personal and structural commitment in comparison with the professional level runners. Semi-professional level runners are in a marginal position: while they have the same personal commitment as the more serious runners, they do not have the parallel structural commitment. The implications of this position are analysed. The preliminary formulation of a theoretical model of sport and leisure commitment is presented, in terms of ‘a circle of commitment’. This involves commitment profile, self-concept, activity levels and achievements.     

The ‘summer of discontent’: Exclusion and communal resistance at the London 2012 Olympics

London 2012 promised local small businesses access to lucrative Olympic event-tourism and visitor trading opportunities. However, as urban spaces were transformed to stage live Games, many local stakeholders found themselves locked out. We focus on one ‘host’ community, Central Greenwich, who emerged negatively impacted by such conditions. 43 in-depth interviews and secondary evidence reveal that this was a community determined to resist. Few papers have extended the concept of resistance to the context of mega-events so we examine why communities resisted, and how physical tactics and creative resistance were deployed. Although efforts afforded some access for local businesses - they proved too little, too late. We develop and present a ‘tactics for resistance’ approach, a series of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ tactics businesses could use to encourage proactive, as opposed to reactive, communal resistance required to protect local interests and afford access to opportunities generated by temporary mega-event visitor economies.     

Amateur choral singing and its implications for the emotional sphere of adult life – a case study

This research note aims to address the lack of research that focuses on the significance of amateur choral singing in the emotional sphere of adult life from an individual’s perspective and over a longer period. The majority of the published research results concerning amateur choral singing refer to choristers as a community; there is a lack of in-depth studies focused on the individual involved in this type of activity. The objective of the study was to identify the ways in which the amateur performance of art may influence the emotional sphere of an individual’s life over many years. The research problem was formulated as the following question: What possible consequences for the emotional sphere of life result from an individual’s practising choral singing? The single case study was chosen as the most appropriate method for answering this question. The respondent was a member of an amateur choir in Cracow, Poland. The data were gathered by means of a semi-structured, in-depth interview. The study conducted provides important insights into the significance of amateur group singing in the emotional sphere of an adult. It leads to the conclusion that amateur choral singing can significantly improve the quality of life of an adult.     

LONG-TERM TRAVELLERS RETURN, ‘HOME’?

Underpinned by philosophical hermeneutics, this paper explores concepts of ‘home’ for returned long-term travellers, taking an iterative approach of multiple interviews, video diaries and interviews with long-term travellers’ significant others. Three returned long-term travellers’ in-depth experiential perspectives are explored to illustrate three alternative notions of home, namely, ‘meaningful home(s)’, ‘blurred home(s)’ and ‘(re)negotiated home(s)’. These alternatives challenge assumed spatial conceptualisations of ‘home’. As such, the paper contributes philosophically, conceptually and methodologically to tourism studies research by taking a person-centred and post-disciplinary approach to explore more pluralistic ways of knowing home(s).     

The view from inside the 'simulacrum‘: visitors’ tales from the set of Coronation Street

The social significance of visits to television and film locations has been little studied. This article concentrates on Granada Studios Tour (GST) - home of the external set of Coronation Street - and uses as its main source interviews with visitors to GST, conducted on site and in visitors' homes, to explore the complex significance of this site. Although sites such as GST have tended to be dismissed because of their ‘fictive’ status, a detailed examination of visitors’ experiences - in particular, their reactions to the Street set's status as an actual place of filming - suggests a more interesting picture. Visiting the Street set connects viewers to the ‘world of television’, a connection examined from a number of different perspectives: ‘aura’ (in Walter Benjamin's sense), social memory and symbolic reversals, pilgrimage and ritual place. The analysis of GST and the Street set as ‘ritual places’ draws in particular on the work of the anthropologist Jonathan Smith. It develops from the way the set connects two places and two worlds organized in a symbolic hierarchy: the ‘ordinary world’ of viewers and the ‘media world’. Such worlds are, largely, social constructions, but they are the basis of GST's particular ‘power of place’. The conclusion connects this analysis to Lash and Urry's recent (1994) analysis of the ‘resubjectivization of space’ in contemporary travel and reflexivity.     

An Insight into the Personal and Emotive Context of Wildlife Viewing at the Penguin Place,Otago Peninsula,New Zealand

The personal and emotive context of visitors’ experiences has been neglected in much sustainable tourist attraction management. This paper applies ASEB demi-grid analysis as a consumer-orientated management tool to facilitate an understanding of the beneficial experiences gained by international visitors to a penguin-watching tourism attraction on the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand. Forty in-depth interviews with visitors showed that the main beneficial experiences gained included reported enhanced environmental awareness (cognition) and ‘mood’ benefits (affection). In addition, several consistent themes emerged from the beneficial experiences reported by tourists, including issues related to viewing, proximity, authenticity and wonder. Findings thus included the perceived importance of visitors to be able to view endangered penguins ‘up close’ in their natural habitat to elicit feelings of exploration and privilege, to appreciate the simplicity and naturalness of the setting and to increase their knowledge of the species through interaction with an experienced guide.     

If it weren‘t for my hobby,I'd have a life: dog sports,serious leisure,and boundary negotiations

In the social sciences, work, family and religion - but not leisure - are commonly thought to shape the meanings people give their lives. But increasingly leisure research reports that under modernism, leisure practice and cultural consumption are at least as essential. What happens when leisure and ‘real world’ institutions pose different, even conflicting expectations? We focus on ‘serious leisure’ as elaborated through Tomlinson's ‘culture of commitment’. Our case study is people who participate in serious leisure involving dogs. The data comes from 61 interviews plus field notes based on our own involvement in dog sports. We ask how as an alternative world often perceived by self and others as marginal, this passionate avocation interfaces with the ‘real world’ of work, family, religion, and other social institutions. We find that dog sports indeed represent a ‘culture of commitment’. For hobbyists, involvement shapes such life realms as how time is used, how money is spent, how kin are defined, and how profit is viewed. Sometimes it generates strong behavioural expectations for participants, expectations that clash with those of the ‘real world’. Examples include gender identity and religious and work obligations. When these clashes occur, respondents neither simply succumb to nor resist either set of demands. Rather, they negotiate between the two, reproducing and reshaping each simultaneously. Meanwhile, they also deal with the intrinsic tensions that a serious leisure pursuit brings.     

Lifestyling entrepreneurs’ sociological expressionism

This study explores the tourism host-home relationship investigated through documentary analysis of photographs choreographed through mutual negotiation between hosts and researcher (collaborative auto-driving) and participants’ spoken narratives (photo-elicitation interviews); we identify the significance for tourism product construction. Major findings concern the sociological expressionism of the tourism lifestyle entrepreneur who creates a certain personal brand identity or ‘lifestyling’ through their commercial home presentation; ‘private’, ‘inclusive’ and ‘temporal’ classification categories of hosts’ favourite spaces in the home are identified, based upon the individual spatial management strategies employed. Depictions of favourite spaces emphasised emotional and sensorial dimensions rather than material things present, and were described as spaces of contentment and tranquillity essential for energising hosts in the ongoing production of the commercial home.     

The heritage of Chinese cities as seen through the gaze of zhonghua wenhua – ‘Chinese common knowledge’: Guilin as an exemplar

ABSTRACT

The pursuit of modernization in cities all over China has at one level resulted in the disappearance of much built heritage; yet at another level, millennia-old elements of urban traditions are as visibly present in contemporary cities as they were centuries ago. This visibility, however, is not always apparent to non-Chinese observers. To reach an understanding of this phenomenon, it is suggested that the normative ‘western’ approach to heritage with its focus on physical materialities, an orientation that explores in great detail the built fabric of monuments, buildings and sites and which embeds a definition of authenticity in how close to the original the current, existing manifestations are, needs to be put to one side. In Chinese history, the fundamental importance of incorporating cosmology into the entire being of towns and cities to ensure harmony between Heaven and Earth, as defined in the selection of their location in the landscape, cardinal orientation, spatial layout and the disposition of principal buildings – has been recorded in a template known as the ‘Zhou li’ or Rites of Zhou (circa 1035 BC). It was compiled by the Duke of Zhou, who is credited with transforming an abstract concept, the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven (through which emperors ruled as ‘Sons of Heaven’ by divine right), into physical city planning and design. However, he was preceded by the ‘Three Sovereigns’ and ‘Five Sage Emperors’, including Huang-di (the Yellow Emperor, eulogized as ‘the Father of the Yellow Race’) who in Chinese historico-mythology received divine instructions that laid the basis for feng shui and Daoism and provided a context for the compilation of the Zhou li. While this template evolved over centuries, its four key tenets based around cosmology remained much the same and throughout imperial China it continued as the master guide for planning towns and cities. Despite attempts during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) to destroy the ‘Four Olds’ (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits and Old Ideas), the essence of seeking harmony (integral to the belief system underpinning the Zhou li ) remains a predominant ideal in contemporary China, and some elements of the ancient template continue to be actively applied to the present day. Thus even though many Chinese cities may have ‘lost’ their built heritage as defined by western ‘authorities’ such as ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites, the technical body that advises United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on applications for World Heritage Site listing), their cosmological foundations remain and will often be as evident to Chinese observers today as when those cities were originally founded hundreds of years ago. The concept of ‘Chinese common knowledge’ is crucial to this comprehension. These varied historical and cultural traditions provide the setting to examine the origins of Guilin, a 2200-year-old city in Guangxi Province, which exhibits original aspects of its traditional heritage that are eminently visible in the twenty-first-century city to the Chinese gaze but are often out of sight from western observers who fail to recognize the Chinese tangibles and intangibles all around them.     

‘Contested knowledges’ and leisure studies provision

This paper discusses an initial exploration of some of the processes of leisure education. Focusing upon a level 2 module titled Gender, Difference and Leisure (GDL), which is concerned not only with developing knowledge but also critical reflection, it examines a number of interrelated emergent issues. These issues are concerned with formal and informal affects/outcomes of the provision of a module concerned with ‘contested knowledges’. The research examines a number of undergraduate student experiences of undertaking the module, which at times necessitated discussions of a sensitive or contentious nature. The majority of students undertaking this module were young men, many taking a sports specialization. The paper considers the module's impact upon students' perceptions. Rather than assessing students' experiences of the module in a quantitative manner, the research adopts a qualitative approach to interpreting students' understanding and experiences of the module content and its delivery, through the use of participant observation and interviews. Furthermore, it examines interactions in seminars, highlighting different perspectives on the relative significance of sex and ‘race’ issues. The problematic of the ‘silencing’ of ‘race’ and the strategies some students adopted to resist challenges to their gendered values and beliefs are examined. The findings show that making available ‘contested knowledge’ within a culture heavily steeped in masculinist, racist and positivistic discourses is difficult, beset with tensions and requires considerable sensitivity in approach and an awareness of current popular discourses.     

City Break Motivation

Abstract

This paper investigates why people take city break trips. The main objective of the study was to reveal the underlying push and pull motivational factors associated with taking a city break holiday to Dublin. In-depth interviews with 40 city break visitors uncovered six push factors and eight pull factors. The main push motives involved were ‘escape,’ ‘socialising,’ and ‘self esteem (gift giving).’ City breaks were generally viewed as active or ‘doing’ holidays, with the ‘relaxation’ motive hardly featuring at all as a reason to visit. Pull factors were found to be particularly important in terms of the travel decision. Factors such as ease of access and the availability of cheap flights were not only influential in determining the destination, but also acted, in some cases, as the main stimuli to take the trip.