The Discipline of Leisure: Embodying Cultures of 'Recreation'

by Simon Coleman (Editor), Tamara Kohn (Editor)

Overview

The burgeoning social scientific study of tourism has emphasized the effects of the post-industrial economy on travel and place. However, this volume takes some of these issues into a different area of leisure: the spare-time carved out by people as part of their everyday lives - time that is much more intimately juxtaposed with the pressures and influences of work life, and which often involves specific bodily practices associated with hobbies and sports. An important focus of the book is the body as a site of identity formation, experience, and disciplined recreation of the self. Contributors examine the ways rituals, sports, and forms of bodily transformation mediate between contemporary ideologies of freedom, choice and self-control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845453725
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	01/01/2008
Series:	Social Identities , #4
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Simon Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at Sussex University, spent 11 years at Durham University as Lecturer and then Reader in Anthropology and Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health. He obtained his undergraduate degree and PhD from Cambridge, and was a Junior Research Fellow in both Churchill College and St John's College, Cambridge. His books include The Globalisation of Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge UP 2000), Tourism: Between Place and Performance (ed. with Mike Crang, Berghahn 2002) and Pilgrim Voices (ed. with John Elsner, Berghahn 2003).

Tamara Kohn is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. She has conducted research in Scotland, Nepal, and California. Publications include Extending the Boundaries of 'Care' (1999, ed. with R. McKechnie), "Becoming an Islander through Action in the Scottish Hebrides" - JRAI 8/1: 143-158 (2002), "The Aikido Body: Expressions of Group Identities and Self-discovery in Martial Arts Training" in Dyck and Archetti (eds) Sport, Dance and Embodied Identities (Berg 2003).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Discipline of Leisure: Taking Play Seriously
Simon Coleman and Tamara Kohn

PART I: SURVEYING THE SELF

Chapter 2. Bob, Hospital Bodybuilder: The Integrity of the Body, the Transitiveness of ‘Work’ and ‘Leisure’
Nigel Rapport

Chapter 3. Of Metaphors and Muscles: Protestant ‘Play’ in the Disciplining of the Self
Simon Coleman

PART II: TEMPORALITIES OF LEISURE

Chapter 4. An Adventure Tourist Experience
Maurice J. Kane and Hazel Tucker

Chapter 5. Reframing Place, Time and Experience: Leisure and Illusion in Mallorca
Jacqueline Waldren

PART III: ENACTING NATIONALITY

Chapter 6. Animal and Human Bodies in the Landscapes of English Foxhunting
Garry Marvin

Chapter 7. Playing Like Canadians: Improvising Nation and Identity through Sport
Noel Dyck

Chapter 8. A Relaxed State of Affairs?: On Leisure, Tourism, and Cuban Identity
Thomas F. Carter

PART IV: TRANSCENDING THE NATION

Chapter 9. Staged Discipline as Leisure: Notes on Colonial Sociability in Cairo
Petra Kuppinger

Chapter 10. Bowing onto the Mat: Discourses of Change through Martial Arts Practice
Tamara Kohn

Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

“…forcefully and effectively opposes cultural models that strongly dichotomize social reproduction and social recreation.” ·JRAI

"an interesting anthropological attempt, or, rather, an impressive empirical contribution to exploring diverse contemporary themes in modern sports and leisure activities. In many ways, their book, which comprises nine different and exciting empirical cases covering a rich ethnographic area, intends to expand and broaden the term 'sport' as something more than just purely being an activity carried out for mental, physical or bodily restitution; it is a site of meaning production as well as consumption performed by individuals across the globe. ... the book represents an important contribution to the study of leisure." ·Idrottsforum.org

From the Publisher