The Discipline Of Leisure

The burgeoning social scientific study of tourism has emphasized the effects of the post-industrial economy on travel and place. However, this volume takes some of these issues into a different area of leisure: the spare-time carved out by people as part of their everyday lives - time that is much more intimately juxtaposed with the pressures and influences of work life, and which often involves specific bodily practices associated with hobbies and sports. An important focus of the book is the body as a site of identity formation, experience, and disciplined recreation of the self. Contributors examine the ways rituals, sports, and forms of bodily transformation mediate between contemporary ideologies of freedom, choice and self-control.

This landmark publication brings together some of the most perceptive commentators of the present moment to explore core ideas and cutting edge developments in the field of Leisure Studies. It offers important new insights into the dynamics of the transformation of leisure in contemporary societies, tracing the emergent issues at stake in the discipline and examining Leisure Studies’ fundamental connections with cognate disciplines such as Sociology, Cultural Studies, History, Sport Studies and Tourism. This book contains original work from key scholars across the globe, including those working outside the Leisure Studies mainstream. It showcases the state of the art of contemporary Leisure Studies, covering key topics and key thinkers from the psychology of leisure to leisure policy, from Bourdieu to Baudrillard, and suggests that leisure in the 21st century should be understood as centring on a new ‘Big Seven’ (holidays, drink, drugs, sex, gambling, TV and shopping). No other book has gone as far in redefining the identity of the discipline of Leisure Studies, or in suggesting how the substantive ideas of Leisure Studies need to be rethought. The Routledge Handbook of Leisure Studies should therefore be the intellectual guide of first choice for all scholars, academics, researchers and students working in this subject area.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybernetics and Informatics (ICCI 2012) covers the hybridization in control, computer, information, communications and applications. ICCI 2012 held on September 21-23, 2012, in Chongqing, China, is organized by Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing University, Nanyang Technological University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Hunan Institute of Engineering, Beijing University, and sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). This two volume publication includes selected papers from the ICCI 2012. Covering the latest research advances in the area of computer, informatics, cybernetics and applications, which mainly includes the computer, information, control, communications technologies and applications.

This book examines the concept of ‘lockdown leisure’ as closely related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through a range of inter-disciplinary chapters, the volume unpacks leisure life in lockdown contexts through a range of empirical, conceptual and theoretical contributions. In many countries, a key response to the global Covid-19 pandemic was the implementation of national, regional or local lockdowns. Focusing on the diverse medium and long-term socio-cultural impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, this book examining how various forms of lockdowns impacted leisure activities, industries, cultures and spaces across a variety of transnational contexts. It contains original chapters on topics including but not limited to physical activity, cultural participation, recreation and green spaces, technology, and social exclusion. And so, it shows how Covid-19 lockdowns transformed existing, and produced new, leisure activities. This book is a fascinating reading for students and researchers of leisure studies, sociology, media and cultural studies, youth studies, and educational studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Leisure Studies.

Now in its third successful edition, The Economics of Leisure and Tourism has been fully revised and updated to cover all the latest issues and changes, and more. Essentially a real world text in applied economics, it explains the necessary economic theories from first principles and applies them to a range of leisure and tourism problems and issues at the consumer, business, national and international level. Key themes discussed are: * How is the provision of leisure and tourism determined and could it be provided in a different way? * What are the key opportunities and threats facing leisure and tourism & environmental impacts? * How can economics be used to manage leisure and tourism? International in its outlook, this text uses examples from Brazil, China, India and Japan, as well as Europe, North America and Australia. With an accompanying website with links and Powerpoint resources for lecturers, this new edition provides: * New chapters on regeneration, tourism as an economic development strategy, globalisation and ppolitical economy of tourism. * Introduction of dependency theory and development economics theories * Liberal use of press cuttings, journal articles and international case studies * User friendly learning features such as: visual mapping of chapter contents, chapter objectives, summaries of key points’ short answer questions.

What does it mean to be an individual and how can an individual exist within society? Serious Leisure and Individuality examines the circumstances in the modern world that make for individual distinctiveness, and the role of these conditions in personal and social life. "The individual," said Friedrich Nietzsche, "has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." Elie Cohen-Gewerc and Robert Stebbins explore the road to finding that privilege. They approach individuality by examining its relationship to freedom and being free, and by defining and elaborating on the concept of leisure space. They also look at individuality's place in community, citizenship, and globalization. The complex relationship between individuality and alienation is put under the microscope to highlight the negative side of being distinctive, which has adverse consequences for the individual and society. There are many studies on the modern individual that centre almost entirely on the person facing his local community and broader society. What is missing in the literature - and what Serious Leisure and Individuality provides - is a broad, comprehensive examination of individuality, particularly as it is rooted in leisure and the leisure-like areas of work.

Offering readers the most complete and authoritative critical introduction to Leisure Theory and written by one of the major figures in the field, the book provides an exciting and reliable guide to leisure forms, leisure practice and the representation of leisure. It demonstrates how power relations influence leisure choices and introduces students to the primary functions and regulative mechanisms of leisure, providing a thought provoking account of the central problems confronting students of leisure today. Written with the needs of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in mind, the book will quickly be recognized as the bible for Leisure Theory.

This carefully crafted ebook: “THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS: An Economic Study of American Institutions and a Social Critique of Conspicuous Consumption” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Theory of the Leisure Class is criticism of capitalism. Conspicuous consumption, along with "conspicuous leisure," is performed to demonstrate wealth or mark social status. The book is a treatise on economics and a detailed, social critique of conspicuous consumption, as a function of social class and of consumerism, derived from the social stratification of people and the division of labour, which are the social institutions of the feudal period (9th - 15th centuries) that have continued to the modern era. The book presents the evolutionary development of human institutions (social and economic) that shape society, such as how the citizens earn their livelihoods, wherein technology and the industrial arts are the creative forces of economic production. The sociology and economics applied by Veblen show the dynamic, intellectual influences of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and Herbert Spencer; thus, his theories of socio-economics emphasize evolution and development as characteristics of human institutions. Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) was an American economist and sociologist. He is well known as a witty critic of capitalism. Within the history of economic thought, Veblen is considered the leader of the institutional economics movement. Veblen's distinction between "institutions" and "technology" is still called the Veblenian dichotomy by contemporary economists.