Leisure, activism, and the animation of the urban environment

ABSTRACT

This editorial sets the conceptual frame of reference for the special issue. It examines key themes at the intersection of activist leisure and critical event studies. Drawing on a wide range of social and leisure theory, we establish the critical lens of the Disrupt! project. Funded by Leeds Beckett University, Disrupt! used a variety of innovative methods to interrogate how activism could animate urban spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• the city
• the animation of space
• Lefebvre
• de Certeau

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Leisure Studies editors who have generously and patiently supported us in the preparation of the Special Issue. It was a pleasure to work with all of the authors who contributed to the Special Issue, and we extend our heartfelt thanks for everyone’s hard work and perseverance. We would also like to acknowledge the research cluster award funding we received for the disrupt! project from Leeds Beckett University. Thanks are due to our colleagues in disrupt! including project partners Lynne Hibbard and Zoë Tew-Thompson. Finally, we must acknowledge the immeasurable contributions of Chelsea Reid, who capably served as project coordinator during disrupt! and provided invaluable support during all phases of co-editing this Special Issue.

Notes

1. Another example is the increased use of the performance art piece Mirror Casket as part of the activism undertaken by Black Lives Matter. Initially created in 2014, following the murder of Michael Brown, the Mirror Casket is a coffin covered in mirrors, with a cracked mirror on top. The surfaces of the funeral casket reflect back the gaze of the police as they seek to contain the protest action (Yoganathan, 2020).

2. In Midnight Cricket, the game of cricket is played in symbolically significant and highly surveilled urban sites, at night, as a ‘means to defetishise the exclusionary infrastructure of urban space’ (Gilchrist & Ravenscroft, 2013, p. 61).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leeds Beckett University [Research Cluster Award].

Notes on contributors

Ian R Lamond

Ian Lamond is a senior lecturer in event studies at Leeds Beckett University (UK). His primary research interests are in events of dissent, leisure activism and creative forms of protest, though he has also worked in the fields of fandom studies, death studies and political communication. His most recent book, Liminality and Critical Event Studies: Borders Boundaries and Contestation (Palgrave, 2020) considers the intersection between event studies and cultural anthropology, and he was a guest editor, with Karl Spracklen, of a recent issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies (2020). He is currently completing the editing of Death and Events: International perspectives on events associated with marking the end of life (Routledge), scheduled for publication in June 2021.

Brett Lashua

Brett Lashua teaches sociology at the Institute of Education, University College London (UK). His scholarship is concerned primarily with youth leisure, popular music, cultural heritage and urban geographies. Brett is an Associate Editor for the journals Leisure Sciences, International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, and Leisure/Loisir. His most recent book is Popular Music, Popular Myth and Cultural Heritage in Cleveland: The Moondog, The Buzzard and the Battle for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Emerald, 2019), and he was co-editor of Sounds and the City: Popular Music, Globalization and Place (Palgrave, 2014), Sounds and the City: Volume 2 (Palgrave, 2019), and the Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory (Palgrave, 2017). With Stephen Wagg, Brett coordinates two book series with Liverpool University Press (Liverpool Studies in the Politics of Popular Culture; Liverpool Studies in Popular Music and Place).