‘All the lonely people’: embracing autoethnographic creative analytical practice at the 2017 World Masters Games.

ABSTRACT

It started on Friday 21st April 2017. That was the opening day of a multi-sport event that involved 24,905 participants, 1,094 non-playing officials and 3,216 volunteers. It was a day that I had been waiting for since March 2012. It was a day I spent largely by myself, surrounded by likeminded active participants and hobbyists from all over 100 different countries. This piece of autoethnographic creative analytical practice (CAP applies Clawson, M. and J. Knetsch 1966. Economics of Outdoor Recreation. Baltimore: John Hopkins) five phases of the leisure experience to the author’s first twelve hours as an athlete at the 2017 World Masters Games. By bringing together my two biggest passions, amateur sport and popular music, I seek to stir up your sociological imagination, and let you see things from my unique perspective. I want you to finish this story, thinking about all the lonely people that you may have unintentionally missed/excluded from your leisure studies research.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative analytical practice
• autoethnography
• masters sport

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Richard Keith Wright is a member of the Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand, the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute and the AUT Centre for Active Aging. Dr Wright has made presentations at over a dozen international conferences, had his research published in sport, event and tourism management journals and textbooks and sits on the board of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies (ANZALS). He is a strong advocate for the use of problem-based learning and creative analytical practice within sport event tourism education.