The Messiness of Leisure Research

This book illustrates tensions, absences, and unresolved challenges experienced in research - experiences that are so often left out of the conventional, smooth, and linear discussion of research that generally appears in academic publications.

Felice Yuen is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Her research focuses on leisure and its impact on individuals and the communities in which they live. More specifically, she is interested in leisure as a context for healing. Karen Gallant is Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Her research examines and highlights the role of community-based recreation settings and experiences in facilitating social inclusion, and explores the nature and implications of those interactions for well-being.

Introduction: Unraveling the Research Process: Humanizing Leisure Scholars 1. Becoming a Researcher: Navigating Messy Researcher Subjectivities 2. Examining Self-other Constructions to Advance the Social Justice Goals of Leisure Research 3. On Methods: "The Situation's in Control" 4. Implicit Attitudes and the Challenge of Becoming a Reflexive Leisure Scholar 5. Ethical Considerations When Negotiating Entry in Community-Based Research 6. Going the Extra Mile: Building Trust and Collaborative Relationships with Study Participants 7. "Are You Trying to Make Them Gay?": Culture Wars, Anxieties about Genderplay, and the Subsequent Impacts on Youth 8. Digging Deeper: Engaging in Reflexivity in Interpretivist-Constructivist and Critical Leisure Research