Rereading the history of recreation in Canada: Moving beyond the politics of health

ABSTRACT

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of recreation and public health professionals calling for a common agenda to address physical inactivity. A major reason for this has been the growing acceptance of recreation as a legitimate health partner. What is missed in these recent calls to bring recreation into conversation with health-related fields is that recreation policies and practices have largely emerged within the context of public health interventions. In order to address this gap in the literature, this paper uses Foucault’s analysis of social medicine to highlight how recreation already is, and has long been, a governmental practice built around the social and political objectives of public health. Recognizing the need to reorient how recreation is positioned in contemporary society, it ends by suggesting some alternative directions for recreation and introducing some philosophical questions about the future of recreation services in Canada.

RÉSUMÉ

Au cours des dernières années, un nombre sans cesse croissant de professionnels en loisirs et en santé publique militent en faveur de la mise au point d’objectifs communs pour lutter contre l’inactivité physique. L’une des principales raisons est la reconnaissance croissante des loisirs en tant qu’approche légitime en matière de santé. Ce qui manque à ces récents appels visant à intégrer les loisirs aux discussions portant sur des domaines liés à la santé, c’est que les politiques et les pratiques en matière de loisirs ont largement émergé dans le contexte des interventions de santé publique. Afin de combler cette lacune dans la littérature, le présent article se sert de l’analyse de la médecine sociale de Foucault pour rappeler que les loisirs sont depuis longtemps une pratique gouvernementale construite autour d’objectifs sociaux et politiques de la santé publique. Reconnaissant la nécessité d’accorder aux loisirs la place qui leur revient dans la société contemporaine, il conclut en suggérant des pistes de réorientations des approches en matière de loisirs et en soulevant quelques questions philosophiques sur l’avenir des services de loisirs au Canada.

KEYWORDS:

• Recreation
• public health
• social medicine
• Foucault
• leisure

MOTS-CLÉS:

• loisirs
• santé publique
• médecine sociale
• Foucault
• divertissement

Acknowledgments

This work has been completed in partial fulfillment of Tink’s doctoral dissertation. She would like to thank her supervisory committee, Candace Nykiforuk, Maria Mayan, and Danielle Peers, for their contributions and support. She would also like to thank Bethan Kingsley for her valuable feedback during the development of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been completed as part of Tink’s doctoral work and was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship, the Sport Participation Research Initiative – a joint initiative of SSHRC and Sport Canada, and the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation through the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. Nykiforuk received support as an Applied Public Health Chair from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Alberta Innovates.