Leisure Research for Social Impact

Abstract

Leisure researchers work within a contested landscape for evaluating the quality and significance of their work, thereby necessitating the need to do both rigorous and socially relevant research. The 2014 Butler Lecture tackled the issue of research relevance by advancing three connected pathways to social impact: knowledge mobilization, encouraging critical reflection, and advancing social innovation. In so doing, it positioned leisure research—both its process and benefits— as a vehicle for meaningful engagement between researchers and users; it advocated for research as the conceptual, intellectual, and evidential bases for introspection, which enables researchers to insert themselves and their values into pluralistic (or complex, multilateral) dialogues; and promoted research as a crucial contributor to the change process. Accordingly, recommendations were made to encourage greater social impact, including continuing to reimagine leisure studies and its role in helping society understand, confront, and address complex social challenges.

Keywords:

• benefits of research
• scholarship of engagement
• social practice of research
• high-impact research