Susan Arai

Building communities through leisure: citizen participation in a healthy communities initiative.

This paper reports on an in-depth qualitative study of the experience of citizen participation as a leisure pursuit. Participants were involved with a Healthy Communities initiative. Findings indic...

Critical Race Theory and Social Justice Perspectives on Whiteness, Difference(s) and (Anti)Racism: A Fourth Wave of Race Research in Leisure Studies

Abstract This special issue of the Journal of Leisure Research focuses on critical race theory and social justice perspectives on whiteness, difference(s) and (anti)racism in leisure studies. Drawing on Floyds (2007) previous work articulating waves of race research in leisure studies, we argue this special issue helps to advance a fourth wave. As part of this fourth wave, papers in this issue address the limitations of essentializing race, advance arguments around the social construction and deconstruction of racial categories, re-examine race and racism within broader theoretical frameworks, and connect power, ideology and white hegemony, to illustrate how whiteness is perpetuated and internalized. In this wave, race is also understood as performance. Authors examine the racialization of space and call for a rethinking of justice to address racism and ideologies inherent within policies and practices. This fourth wave also invokes a call for the use of more diverse methodological approaches.

Childhood trauma and chronic illness in adulthood: mental health and socioeconomic status as explanatory factors and buffers

Experiences of traumatic events in childhood have been shown to have long-term consequences for health in adulthood. With data from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey we take a life course perspective of cumulative disadvantage and examine the potential role of mental health and socioeconomic status in adulthood as multiple mediators of the link between childhood trauma and chronic illness in adulthood. Mental health and socioeconomic status are also tested as buffers against the typically adverse consequences of childhood trauma. The results suggest mental health and socioeconomic status partially explain the association of childhood trauma with chronic illness in adulthood, with mental health showing a stronger effect. In addition, an analysis of the interactions suggested higher socioeconomic status is a potential protective factor for those with a history of trauma. Results also suggest cumulative disadvantage following trauma may lead to chronic illness and suggest the need for public health expenditures on resources such as counseling and income supports to prevent or reduce psychological harm and chronic illness resulting from traumatic events.

Serious Leisure as an Avenue for Nurturing Community

Using a communitarian framework to explore relationships between individuals and community, survey research was used to examine relationships among volunteers’ personal value orientations of individualism and collectivism, experiences of volunteering as serious leisure, and perceptions of sense of community and social cohesion. Based on survey responses from 300 current volunteers at ten voluntary organizations, findings linked collectivism and individualism to serious leisure, which in turn strongly associated with sense of community and social cohesion. In these empirical findings, serious leisure emerged as a pathway for nurturing community.

Community services landscape in Canada: survey of developmental disability agencies.

A survey of support services for adults with development disabilities living in community settings in Canada was conducted. Information gathered on services and changes occurring in the community services landscape is discussed. Along with a diminution of governments role in funding and guiding service provision, Canada has witnessed the emergence of private-for-profit services, a relatively recent phenomenon in human services. Differences between the private-for-profit and nonprofit sectors are discussed, including a greater propensity in the nonprofit agencies to engage in advocacy and community education. Overall, evidence indicates that some services are beginning to incorporate individualized approaches to funding and support. Implications for government and for services of emergent patterns of support are noted.

Celebrating, challenging and re-envisioning serious leisure

In this article, we explore and expand theorizing about serious leisure examining its complexities and contradictions and its potential for the social sphere, applying particularly the critical lens of feminist communitarianism. Beginning with a critique of the reliance on activity-based definitions of serious leisure in empirical research and conceptualizations of serious leisure as embedded in a series of dualisms such as positive–negative, work–leisure and serious–casual, we suggest serious leisure be re-envisioned as a complex experience influencing and influenced by the sociopolitical context. We also explore the functional, normative nature of previous literature on serious leisure and the possibility of re-envisioning serious leisure as an expressive and creative experience that nurtures diversity. Advocating for increased attention to the sociopolitical context and the adoption of a critical lens, we suggest that serious leisure experiences may be gendered, commodified and stratified. We advocate for a more complex analysis of serious leisure linked to social and political spheres and celebrate its potential as an avenue for nurturing social ties and building identity. Finally, based on the preceding analysis, we offer a re-envisioned definition of serious leisure for consideration.

Community (Dis)connection Through Leisure for Women in Prison

This article examines incarcerated womens leisure and re-entry into community. Framed in creative analytic practice, two poems reflect two major themes: (1) womens experiences of disconnection from community prior to and deepened by experiences in prison and (2) leisure and community re-entry, which describes complex meanings of leisure for women in prison and implications for return to community. These poems elucidate six often incongruous facets of leisure experience. Structures embedded in leisure service provision stigmatize and limit rather than encourage opportunities for incarcerated women to make personal choices regarding leisure. Leisure also provides contexts of relationship and humanity for women as they re-enter community.

Role of Canadian user‐led disability organizations in the non‐profit sector

User‐led disability organizations have emerged as an important force in the non‐profit sector. While much is known about the traditional disability organizations that began to proliferate in the 1950s (e.g. National Institute for the Blind), relatively less is known about the user‐led organizations that emerged in the 1970s. Using a collective case study approach, phase 1 was a policy review and key informant interviews with members of user‐led and traditional organizations and government. Phase 2 surveyed affiliates of user‐led organizations. Phase 3 integrated the findings from phases 1 and 2. Major themes were that user‐led organizations: reflected a new paradigm and gave voice to people with disabilities; had a unique role in systemic advocacy and shaping policy; that leadership is critical but in need of rejuvenation; had links with other organizations which provide a collective voice, solidarity and hope; had diverse strategies for local resource mobilization; had financial support from government which was both constrained and mobilized.

Relational reflective process as an act of compassionate pedagogy in therapeutic recreation

ABSTRACT The therapeutic relationship is central to healing, creating meaning, and the well-being of individuals encountered in practice. Using narrative methodologies as a way to hear, further reflect on, and represent the team’s experiences within therapeutic relationships, we introduce relational reflective process and the use of relational theory and compassionate pedagogy to deepen understanding and critical reflection on multiple connections in practice (i.e., with self, participants, families, others in the interprofessional team). Through compassionate pedagogy, we broaden what it means to reflect in practice emphasizing aspects of self-reflection, relational reflection, and theoretical reflection to highlight recreation therapists’ voices in highly medicalized settings. Within the relational reflective process, recreation therapists are guided by their own individual voices and also strengthen the power of collective voice in the therapeutic recreation team. We conclude the paper with recommendations for incorporating relational reflective processes into therapeutic recreation practice.

Dialogues for re-imagined praxis: using theory in practice to transform structural, ideological, and discursive “realities” with/in communities

ABSTRACT At the close of this special issue, Re-imagining Therapeutic Recreation: Transformative Practices and Innovative Approaches, our aim is to create an action-oriented document that points to a series of conversations we can continue at conferences, in classrooms, and in practice. In keeping with the call for reflexivity, we hope the document will be a way to ignite further critical reflections and dialogues about the taken-for-granted ways we relate with others and to our practices. As the path of change unfolds, we celebrate the multiple ways of getting there. To help us in this critical reflection and conversation we offer a vignette providing insight into the experiences of one individual and engage a plurality of philosophies and theories to create three critical, socially engaged conversations we see to be crucial to the endeavour of re-imaging and creating change in practices of therapeutic recreation. As much as these dialogues are difficult and challenging, they contain within them possibilities for inspired moments of insight and awareness ripe with possibilities for celebration, playfulness, and change towards social justice.