‘You can all succeed!’: the reconciliatory logic of therapeutic active leisure^*

Abstract

Broad cultural trends such as spectacularization and individualization as induced by consumer culture are transforming the global scene of sport practice with effects that may appear as socially reconciliatory. Commercialization has worked in two directions: while competitive, professional sport is becoming a global media phenomenon, with increasingly global and yet fragmented audiences; ordinary sport practice is being individualized in the Global North and shaped by the individualizing and totalizing logic of therapeutic active leisure. In this paper, the notion of therapeutic active leisure is proposed and explored with particular reference to the development of the fitness field. As I shall show it sits between sport and gymnastics and expresses the socio-economic need to control the health of the population through individualized commercialized formations, by working through consumers’ pleasures rather than citizens’ duties.

Keywords:

• Therapeutic leisure
• commercialization
• health
• physical activity
• sport

Acknowledgements

I warmly thank the organizers as well as all the participants and colleagues who generously offered suggestions on the original paper.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes on contributor

Roberta Sassatelli is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan (Milan, Italy). Her research focuses on the theory of consumer action, the sociology of consumer practices and the politics of contemporary consumer culture as well as theories of embodiment and sexuality, gender studies and the sociology of emotions. Her recent books in English include Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics (Sage, 2007) and Fitness Culture: Gyms and the Commercialization of Discipline and Fun (Palgrave, 2010). Her most recent book Fronteggiare la Crisi (il Mulino, 2015) concerns the impact of the economic crisis on consumer patterns among the Italian middle classes.