LEISURE & TOURISM: Cultural Paradigms

The book attempts a ‘back to the future’ examination of traditional leisure as experienced by peoples from countries around the world. The stories and accounts narrated in the essays aim to help a (re)discovery of core leisure values and remind us to focus on the essence of leisure whilst discerning the superficial and the meaningless. The idea that affluent societies formulated more meaningful leisure concepts and practices due to availability of greater free time and resources has not come to fruition in recent decades. In fact, social-cultural changes in western and developing countries have created the need for a critical examination of leisure arising out of a concern that the values and benefits of leisure, as enshrined in earlier western leisure theory have been eroded while those of traditional societies have not been given due credence. In this volume, writers from developing societies address the issue of how traditional leisure forms are impacting modern practices and understanding of leisure leading to new hybrid forms that are more inclusive even as they are expressive of the varied modes of leisure. Alternative modes of leisure practice that go beyond the work-leisure binary giving primacy to the leisure experiences undertaken in affluent societies also form an important segment of the book.

The essays on tourism make a critical evaluation of both the enhancing and the deleterious facets of this popular leisure form, as they examine how traditional ways of life are turned into sites for both a deeper understanding of different cultures and for the benefit of voyeurs. An interesting aspect of the book is an exploration of how certain pilgrimage sites have turned into touristic spaces for reconciliation and interaction between the erstwhile exploiter and the exploited.

The essays in this book expressing leisure practices from all continents of the world ably incorporate theoretical perspectives that underpin those practices.

John Dodd has been engaged with leisure studies since the late 1980s. He has spent several years at the University of Technology, Sydney, lecturing in the Leisure, Sport and Tourism Department. In recent years he has been teaching at the National Institute of Sports Studies, University of Canberra where he is Associate Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Health. His research interests range from the motivations of men to engage in Masters/Veterans sport through life-cycle stages to the study of male leisure repertoires before and after midlife. More recently, he has turned his attention to Australian traditional culture examining leisure and sport practice.

Veena Sharma is currently a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India where she is engaged in a comparative study of two spiritual traditions—the Vedantic from India and the Akan from Ghana, West Africa. She lectured regularly on leisure as seen through the Vedantic perspective at the WICE, International Centre for Excellence in Leisure Studies, Wageningen, Netherlands for more than ten years. She has also presented several papers on different aspects of Leisure and Vedanta at various World Leisure Conferences and has contributed numerous research papers to international journals on leisure studies.