The Influence of Power on Leisure: Implications for Inclusive Leisure Services.

Francisco Javier Lopez Frias,John Dattilo

doi:10.3390/ijerph18052220

Francisco Javier Lopez Frias, John Dattilo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052220

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Abstract

Many people experience domination as they encounter oppression and marginalization because of power differentials limiting their leisure. We rely on Foucault for guidance to examine connections between power and opportunities for people to be included in leisure and recognize that, like Foucault, we experience privilege. Considering such privilege, we explore power and people connections, scrutinize ways power influences leisure, and examine methods to promote or resist power to increase leisure. Drawing on the analysis of power and leisure, we examine how discourse influences leisure and identify ways to facilitate inclusive leisure. We consider these aspects via Allen’s (1998) modalities of power-over, power-to, and power-with. Analyzing these modalities, we address barriers to leisure associated with power, strategies people use to engage in resistance through leisure, and ways inclusive leisure might occur. We conclude that each person can make positive contributions and offer inclusive leisure.

Highlights

Recreation, Park and Tourism Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA; Abstract: Many people experience domination as they encounter oppression and marginalization because of power differentials limiting their leisure
According to Miller [23], Foucault contributes to thinking about leisure in at least two ways, namely (a) as it connects to individuals’ ability to shape their identity and engage with one another, and (b) as it relates to ways in which institutions use power to perpetuate and promote specific discursive frameworks
To increase understanding of power’s influence, Foucault commented: “When we examine how, in the late eighteenth century, it was decided to choose imprisonment as the essential mode of punishment, one sees that it was after a long elaboration of various techniques that made it possible to locate people, to fix them in precise places, to constrict them to a certain number of gestures and habits—in short, it was a form of ‘dressage’” [39]

Summary

The Pervasiveness of Power

According to Rojek [22], scholars often contrast leisure to other activities, such as work, and ignore power. Since discourse exerts power on people by delimiting what they can say, know, and do [28], power is not something that people who experience privilege possess; rather it is a result of human actions. Bourdieu [30] concludes that discursive spaces contain meanings communicated via discourse involving production and replication of power relations within institutional spaces as a way to create domination. According to Foucault [29], power results from people’s actions in social networks; it does not refer to authoritarian or institutional relationships, but to relationships between people broadly speaking. Ways in which people talk about, think of, and act upon leisure radically vary, creating different types of discourses and power relations

Power in Leisure

Power in Inclusive Leisure

How Does Power-Over Create Barriers to Leisure?

What Are Ways to Promote Power-To that Facilitate Access to Leisure?

How Do People Collaborate to Exert Power-With?

Conclusions