The Fatal Coupling of Race, State and Research on Disparities

Abstract

Modern technology doesn’t only offer greater opportunities for leisure experiences. It opens the door for surveillance and disempowerment as well. As the justice-oriented endeavor of leisure researchers increased over the years, so too has their access to data sources on racialized people made possible by the advent of digital technology. Geospatial datasets are used to extrapolate leisure service disparities and social patterns in predominantly racialized communities. Yet we rarely question the adverse and potentially life-threatening effects of the use of big data in our research. We draw from the concept of geographies of threat to connect leisure research on disparities and the production of State violence imparted onto racialized spatial configurations. Leisure scholars must interrogate if and how the use of large datasets may contribute to the State surveillance apparatus rendering the lives of racialized peoples more vulnerable to the violence and coercive power of the State.

Keywords:

• Race
• State
• power
• surveillance
• leisure
• research