Leisure, Art, and Advocacy: Opportunities for Conscientizaçao, Contentious Dialogue, and Social Justice

Abstract

Leisure is increasingly recognized for its role in social justice. Scholars have highlighted specific leisure contexts as sites for social justice, and calls have been made for academics to apply a social justice perspective to their research. The article explores the experiences of women who have been criminalized and their engagement in social justice through a community arts project located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This article focuses on how women who have been incarcerated experience leisure as a political act by engaging in conscientizaçao and contentious dialogue. Findings, which are presented through Margaux’s Story, emphasize the simultaneous experiences of internalizing stigma, resisting the punitive discourse, and being deserving of a second chance. The discussion contends social justice involves a contentious yet liberating collective experience achieved through shared responsibility between individuals who are oppressed and the greater community.

Keywords:

• advocacy
• community arts
• criminalized women
• leisure
• social justice

Notes

1 For example, Connie Lim (MILCK) performed the song Quiet at the Women’s March (Washington, DC) in 2017, along with 25 women from across the United States (Washington Post, 2017). In addition to mobilizing local and international action against oppression and violence through choirs, individuals performances, and flash mobs, the song has mobilized individuals to share their stories through Twitter (#ICANTKEEPQUIET) and the creation of a website created to fight against the cycle of oppression and fear (see www.icantkeepquiet.org).