CFP: Annals of Leisure Research Special Issue: Leisure and Nature

Annals of Leisure Research Special Issue: Leisure and Nature

Guest Editor: Kevin Markwell, Southern Cross University

‘Nature’ is configured within leisure in multiple ways: as a place that provides a setting for a vast array of leisure activities; as the ‘raw ingredients’ for the creation of gardens, zoos and other attractions; as the basis for hunting and fishing and photography; and as a commodity from which we derive pleasure through its consumption, among others.  Although a considerable body of knowledge has been built up over many years in relation to outdoor recreation (see for example Pigram and Jenkins, 2006; Davidson and Stebbins, 2011) much less literature exists that critically examines the social relations with nature that are created and recreated within a broader leisure context.  What are the modes of engagement that exist within leisure that ‘connect’ us to nature and how are these changing? Do leisure practices reflect dominant binary dualisms that position nature and culture as very separate domains or can they serve to destabilise and trouble these dualisms? How are leisure and nature interconnected within different cultural contexts?

It is timely to critically consider our relationships with nature as they are constituted in, and through, leisure practices and settings. This need for a deeper understanding is particularly important as many natural and social scientists argue that we are now living in the Anthropocene epoch in which human influence on nature in both space and time has never before been so profound (Zalasiewicz et al., 2011).  While many scholars have argued that ‘immersion in nature’ and ‘ongoing connectedness with nature’ assists in the development of environmental knowledge, understanding, sensitivity and empathy (Lugg, 2007), other research suggests that leisure participation in nature is declining in Western societies (Pergams and Zaradic, 2008).  To what extent are new discourses and understandings of nature emerging and how, if at all, is leisure implicated in these?

This Special Issue aims to engage with these issues and the editor invites submissions on topics that include but are not limited to:

• Animals and leisure: pets keeping; hunting and fishing; entertainment
• Gardens and gardening
• Consuming nature via the Internet
• Extreme natures/extreme leisure
• Nature, leisure and the Anthropocene
• Neoloberalism, leisure and nature
• Artificial natures and leisure
• Cross-cultural experiences of nature through leisure
• Embodiment, nature and leisure
• Serious leisure and nature
• Outdoor recreation
• Leisure, nature and identity
• Leisure and the commodification of nature

Important Dates for Authors: