Heteronormativity in Leisure Research: Emancipation as Social Justice

Abstract

Leisure research has the capacity to contribute to social justice when it provides emancipatory spaces for the interrogation of pervasive heteronormative ideologies. Heteronormative ideologies permeate social practices much like infections pollute a body. Research is not immune to heteronormativity, given that assumed links among sex, gender, and sexual orientation can pervert empirical inquiry. In this essay I suggest that by interrogating categories and relational positions as practices of power, leisure scholars may better examine to what level heteronormative ideologies are corrupting socially just research. By exposing how social practices regulate bodies relationally, emancipatory space is created for describing, interrogating, and challenging how heteronormative regulatory practices simultaneously privilege and oppress. I conclude this essay by suggesting that emancipatory research can create opportunities for social justice when researchers and participants are transparent in recognizing and respecting the uniqueness of their own positions and those of others.

Keywords:

• emancipation
• gender
• heteronormativity
• social justice

Acknowledgment

The author would like to express his gratitude to Bill Stewart for facilitating spaces for exploring leisure research as social justice. He would also like to thank Dana Kivel for her research and mentorship that have greatly influenced this essay.