{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03537117903930131, 'fraction_numerical': 0.014410480349344978, 'mean_word_length': 5.259562841530054, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Leisure, space and change: Examining the terrain of social struggle and transformation

Over the past decade, cultural studies and critical theory have provided important contributions to our understanding of the concept of space (Aitchison, 1999; Crouch, 2006). In the call for papers for this special issue, we hoped to expand this pioneering scholarship, as we relied on Lefebvre’s (1991) deeply influential work on the production of space to proffer a notion of space not as a mere “thing in itself,” but as the outcome of complex and negotiated relationships. We conceptualized space as both a medium and an outcome of social relations that shape one’s identity development, and construct differences that take material form (van Ingen, 2003). Similar to van Ingen, we believed that “space needs to be examined as a point of ideological struggle and as the site for the re/production of power,” and within that examination, we sought to understand how “social space connects the wider structures of power to the lived experience of individual and collective actors” (p. 210). Space could be seen as oppressive and as a site of marginalization, and more significantly, it could also provide important counterspaces for “diverse, resistant, and oppositional practices” (van Ingen, 2003, p. 204). Drawing on this framework, it was our hope the call for papers would encourage new ways of understanding leisure and its relationship to space and change, and through a critical scholarship, help us to consider the dominant ideologies and power structures as they are (re)produced, expressed and resisted. The first collection of papers of this special issue (see Leisure/Loisir, volume 35, issue 1, 2011) challenged us to rethink and re-imagine how we conceptualize the interrelationships between leisure, space and social change. Using new spatial metaphors and drawing from multiple disciplines, the authors re-conceptualized how we might seek to understand the complexity of leisure spaces. Concepts such as a moral terrain (Grimwood), agrileisure (Amsden and McEntee), thinking intersectionally (Watson and Ratna), the power of an individual to evoke positive social change (Dustin and Bricker) and the communitizing potential of institutional spaces (Fortune and Whyte) were put forth.