Leisure In Britain Research Articles

Landscapes of Hope and Crisis: Dereliction, Environment, and Leisure in Britain during the Long 1970s

AbstractThis article surveys plans that envisioned new leisure uses for derelict landscapes in Britain from about 1966 to 1979. These plans were an attempt to transform areas of Britain in ways that cut across issues ranging from deindustrialization to planning, landscape, environmentalism, industrial heritage, and leisure. The author argues for the importance of the profession of landscape architects in setting the agenda for tackling industrial dereliction. It then shows these issues playing out in three locations: in the Lea Valley, in Stoke-on-Trent, and in Telford New Town. Derelict landscapes were a visual manifestation of the various crises that continue to structure historians’ accounts of the 1970s, but the author shows how the response to the issue was characterized by an almost utopian optimism that these problems could be resolved in a way that would stimulate new forms of living.

Locked down leisure in Britain

ABSTRACT This paper explains how the spread of Covid-19 in early-2020 led to containment measures throughout Europe, including a legally enforced lockdown in the UK from 23 March which closed most out-of-home leisure provisions. Time use evidence is then used to show how lockdown led to an abrupt, unprecedented in scale, increase in residual ‘leisure’ time, and how this was distributed and used among males and females, in different age groups. The immediate lessons for leisure studies have been to endorse claims that leisure activities promote well-being, that loss of social connections at work and leisure weakens macro-solidarity, and that the importance of leisure provisions in modern economies. Experiences during the lockdown, and difficulties in existing, then clarify exactly which leisure matters most, for whom, and why.

Juvenile Organizations Committees and the State Regulation of Youth Leisure in Britain, 1916–1939

Following a sharp rise in juvenile delinquency in the early years of the First World War, the British government instituted local juvenile organisations committees to create positive leisure opportunities for young workers in munitions factories. Although intended as a wartime measure, these committees were retained through interwar peacetime, coordinating voluntary youth associations, employers, and the probation service in efforts to promote the use of leisure as a sphere in which to regulate the behavior of adolescents and young adults. Although not statutory, they were the channel through which government grants to voluntary youth associations were made under the Education Acts of 1918 and 1921. These committees symbolized the early twentieth-century shift in emphasis from criminalizing offending youth to befriending and educating them, pioneering the new philanthropy of state-voluntary partnership in the provision of youth welfare. However, the bureaucratic nature of this partnership also involved a surveillance of and intrusion into the private lives of young people. Juvenile organisations committees have received little attention from historians but remain important for their modernizing approach to juvenile delinquency and youth welfare, as well as for their legacy as an operational template for the state youth service that superseded them.

“Making the Art of Fun Freely Accessible”: Community Arts Practices and the Politics of Leisure in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s

Le concept de loisir offre un prisme fertile pour l'analyse du mouvement community arts en Grande-Bretagne. L’emergence de ce mouvement a la fin des annees soixante est etroitement liee a la critique du caractere exclusif des mondes de l’art, tant dans l'acces aux œuvres que dans la pratique artistique. Il participe d'une lutte pour l'acces democratique aux moyens de production culturels. Le loisir peut etre tout d'abord envisage comme un outil a la disposition des animateurs, qui favorise l'expression de voix habituellement marginalisees et qui conduit a des processus d’« auteurisation ». Loin d'etre considere comme une revendication secondaire, l'acces aux loisirs, dans ses connotations riches qui incluent le jeu, le divertissement et la recreation, fut mis au premier plan dans le cadre d'action du mouvement. Il devient un projet politique: celui d’ouvrir des espaces alternatifs et d’exploiter la dimension dynamique et subversive de l'expression creative propice a l'emergence d’actions collectives au niveau local. D’une maniere cruciale, les projets community arts affirment l’egale validite de toutes les formes culturelles et des pratiques signifiantes, remettant ainsi en cause les definitions dominantes de l’art. Le pluralisme culturel revendique par les community artists mettent en question la distinction hierarchique qui separent les formes nobles et populaires de la culture et cherchent au contraire a redefinir l'art autour du concept plus ouvert d’expression creative. Ce deplacement permet de revoquer la figure de l’artiste individuel et d’evoluer vers la possibilite d'imaginer un partage de la fonction auteur dans la production de significations collectives. L’article analyse les enjeux politiques du loisir dans le contexte des organisations community arts a travers les discours et pratiques produits. Basee sur un travail dans les archives de differentes organisations ainsi que sur des entretiens avec d’anciens membres, l'etude met en lumiere differentes pratiques et identifie les principes fondamentaux du mouvement : l’accessibilite, l’action collective, la mise en capacite des individus ( empowerment ) et la democratie culturelle. Ces themes se trouvent mis a mal pendant les annees 1980s, dans le contexte des gouvernements Conservateurs successifs.

Leisure and cultural conflict in twentieth-century Britain

Introduction: contextualising leisure history 1. Jeffrey Hill - Leisure and historiography in twentieth-century Britain 2. Allison Abra - The evolution of popular dancing in Britain in the 1920s 3. Brad Beaven - Mass commercial leisure and working-class cultures in 1930s Britain 4. Sandra Dawson - Selling the circus: Englishness, circus fans and democracy in Britain, 1920-45 5. Kelly Boyd - The western and British identity on British Television in the 1950s 6. Brett Bebber - 'The misuse of leisure': football violence, politics and family values in 1970s Britain 7. Chad Martin - Permissive claptrap: cannabis law and the legacy of the 1960s 8. Cecile Doustaly - Women and leisure in Britain: a socio-historical approach to twentieth-century trends Index

The Battle for Beachlands: Hayling Island and the Development of Coastal Leisure in Britain 1820–1960

William Padwick, the successful entrepreneur, once envisaged Hayling, .a flat rural island off the south coast of Hampshire, as a resort that would rival Brighton in popularity and amenities. In 1823 he successfully lobbied Parliament to build a bridge connecting the island to the mainland. 1 The bridge opened in 1824, and within two years, Padwick began building on the island's sandy southern shore. Norfolk Crescent, an imposing curved construction of sixteen luxury town homes similar to buildings in Brighton and Bath, was flanked by the Royal Hotel, a bathhouse for sea-bathing, and an ionic-columned library, all deemed essential leisure amenities for a fashionable spa resort in the nineteenth century.

Young People's Leisure in Britain and Germany: a Test of European Integration

Young People's Leisure in Britain and Germany: a Test of European Integration

The Sociology of Gender and Leisure in Britain—Past Progress and Future Prospects

Abstract The paper reviews gender and leisure in the UK over the past decade and also explores possible future directions. Initial work on gender and leisure added women into the existing studies of male leisure but also pointed out how women's experience of leisure differed. This work led rethinking the concept of leisure and the relationship between employment, unpaid work and leisure and saw important methodological developments in qualitative research. There has also been an attempt to analyse the structured nature of male/female relationships (and power within those relationships), whilst still emphasising agency and meaning. The significance of studying gender issues in relation to male leisure has also begun to emerge. Much less explored have been issues of sexuality, physicality, race and ethnicity, the state and the interrelation of production and consumption. The paper concludes by suggesting fresh research topics.

Whose side are they on? Leisure studies and cultural studies in Britain

After discussing some of the responses to the 1988 LSA International Conference, particularly the theory-practice or academic-practitioner relation, this paper goes on to explore the roots of leisure studies and the sociology of leisure in Britain, and to account for the impact of cultural studies upon the study of leisure. It is argued that the critical dimension to cultural studies could restore to the study of leisure some of the major concerns of classical social and cultural theory. The 1985 talk was published, with the same title, in Ernst Meijer (Ed.), Everyday Life, Leisure and Culture (English Edition, undated), Dutch Centre for Leisure Studies, Tilburg University, Postbox 90153, 500 Le Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Leisure, culture and the historian: reviewing the first generation of leisure historiography in Britain

A comprehensive and critical review of 15 years or more of scholarly production in the social history of leisure in Britain, c. 1700 to the present, under three headings: the broad chronology or developmental schema suggested by historians, their various and disputed interpretations of the major forces and relationships in modern leisure formation, and an overall assessment of the field and suggestions for future work. The review notes historians' growing appreciation of the complexity of leisure's role in social change and class relationships, their attention to the significance of continuities amid change, and their broadening understanding of cultural dynamics, but argues that the field needs some recharging from more imaginative and theoretically informed approaches to leisure as text, discourse and performance.

Politics and Leisure in Britain

Politics and Leisure in Britain

State Intervention in Sport and Leisure in Britain between the Wars

Anyone writing about sport at the present time can hardly escape the political nature of the subject matter. The obvious example of the interaction of sport and politics is, of course, the recent Olympic boycotts by Black Africa, the USA, and most recently the Soviet Union. Given this politicization of sport, it is hardly surprising that a number of scholarly studies of popular culture have stressed that leisure is a political question, where struggles over spare time, facilities and ideological meanings are continually taking place. Indeed, to the Marxist, sport is an integral part of the superstructure of society and something closely connected to political life. Hence, according to John Hargreaves, sport provides 'surrogate satisfactions for an alienated mass audience, while at the same time perpetuating its alienation and functioning as a means of political socialization into the hegemonic culture. Sport in its organized form is a microcosm of society.' Although many social scientists would disagree with this view, even those with a liberal democratic notion of the state would find it difficult to refute the fact that sport and leisure are now firmly situated in the political domain. Clearly, the influence of the state by which is meant central and sub-central government, the administration, the police and the judiciary, and parliamentary assemblies is brought to bear on a vast range of sporting questions.2 For some time now, historians of capitalist society have been unearthing material revealing that in the past the state has sought to use leisure for its own ends. Most accounts have stressed leisure as a form of social control, contributing to the formation of a temperate, disciplined workforce. A great deal has also been written about the aim of the authorities to provide improved, reformed recreations to wean the working class away from the alleged degenerations of their own culture. They were not always successful in doing this, for

Leisure, the local state and social order

This paper investigates ways in which social theory has conceptualized the nature and function of state intervention in the field of leisure. The particular focus of the paper is on the nature of state mediation of leisure in Britain's inner cities which have been prone to periodic bouts of disorder and riot, particularly in the last five years. However, the paper does not constitute a pragmatic search for policies to solve urban disorders by managing either leisure or other service provision more effectively in the inner city (though such a task properly confronts professionals employed by the state); rather our concern here is to explain how particular state responses are mediated by professionals in the initiation and implementation of policy. The paper rejects the notion of a monolithic state responding in a uniform way to emerging social problems, and aims to illustrate the contribution of a theoretically informed analysis to an understanding of the state's role in promoting and controlling certain f...

Reviews

Book reviewed in this articleGREAT BRITAIND. A. Crowley (Ed.). The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Wiltshire. Vol. XII.T. H. Aston, P. R. Coss, Christopher Dyer and Joan Thirsk(Eds.). Social Relations and Ideas: Essays in Honour of R. H. Hilton.Susan M. Wright. The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth Century.John Bohstedt. Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790‐1810.S. R. Cope. Walter Boyd: A Merchant Banker in the Age of Napoleon.Derek H. Aldcroft and Michael J. Freeman(Eds.). Transport in the Industrial Revolution.John K. Walton and James Walvin(Eds.). Leisure in Britain, 1780‐1939.Katrina Honeyman. Origins of Enterprise: Business Leadership in the Industrial Revolution.John Garrard. Leadership and Power in Victorian Industrial Towns, 1830‐80.Frances Finnegan. Poverty and Prejudice: A Study of Irish Immigrants in York, 1840‐1875.David Brooke. The Railway Navvy.Frances Widdowson. Going Up into the Next Class: Women and Elementary Teacher Training, 1840‐1914.Sydney and Olive Checkland. Industry and Ethos: Scotland, 1832‐1914.David J. Jeremy (Ed.). Dictionary of Business Biography: A Biographical Dictionary of Business Leaders Active in Britain in the Period 1860‐1980. Vol. 1: A‐C.Forrest Capie and Michael Collins. The Inter‐War British Economy: A Statistical Abstract.William Knox (Ed.). Scottish Labour Leaders, 1918‐1939: A Biographical Dictionary.John Stevenson. British Society, 1914‐1945.Peter Pagnamenta and Richard Overy. All Our Working Lives.J. H. van Stuijvenberg (Ed.). The Interactions of Amsterdam and Antwerp with the Baltic Region, 1400‐1800.Artur Attman. Dutch Enterprise in the World Bullion Trade, 1550‐1800.Sarah C. Maza. Servants and Masters in Eighteenth‐Century France: The Uses of Loyalty.Franclois JequierNikolai Todorov. The Balkan City, 1400‐1900.Maldwyn A. Jones. The Limits of Liberty: American History, 1607‐1980.Philip Scranton. Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800‐1885.Walter Licht. Working for the Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century.Gary M. Walton and James F. Shepherd(Eds.). Market Institutions and Economic Progress in the New South, 1865‐1900.Colin M. Lewis. British Railways in Argentina, 1857‐1914: A Case Study of Foreign Investment. London: Athlone Press for the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London. 1983. Pp. xii+259. 41 tables. 2 graphs. 5 maps. £20.)Michelle Burge McAlpin. Subject to Famine: Food Crises and Economic Change in Western India, 1860‐1920.Frank H. H. King (Ed.). Eastern Banking: Essays in the History of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.Robert H. Bates. Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa.Norman Etherington. Theories of Imperialism: War, Conquest, and Capital.