[ecrea] CfP - Special Issue of Leisure Studies on Leisure, Activism, and the Animation of the Urban Environment

*Special Issue of Leisure Studies on Leisure, Activism, and the 
Animation of the Urban Environment*
**
There is a long history to leisure and protest (Gilchrist & Ravenscroft, 
2013; Lamond, 2018; Lamond & Spracklen, 2015; Lashua & Baker, in press) 
in the UK as elsewhere. Urban public spaces—such as the National Mall in 
Washington D.C.; Tiananmen Square in Beijing; Tahrir Square in Cairo, or 
Trafalgar Square in London—have often served as rallying sites. In a 
broader example, on February 15^th 2003 more than 15 million people took 
to the streets around the world to protest against the pending war on 
Iraq. Since then we have seen, amongst other mass mobilizations, the 
Arab uprisings across several states in the Middle East; the Occupy 
movement across the world; the umbrella protests in Hong Kong; Black 
Lives Matter; the 2018 Women’s March; the alt-National Park movement in 
the USA; and the March for Science demonstrations in 500 cities 
worldwide (Pavoni, 2017). Yet, alongside this, we are concerned with the 
emergence of populism on the Right, and ultra-nationalism, e.g., the UK 
referendum to leave the EU; the French presidential candidate Marine le 
Pen, the xenophobic framing of debates around migration and much more. 
Whether conservative or progressive, these moments and movements have 
relied on support and participation of people using leisure, and leisure 
spaces, to protest: people who want the world to be /other /than it is. 
Now appears a time to reflect on this, to ask what discourses are at 
play and how to make sense of where leisure connects to activism, 
protests, dissent and upheaval. We are interested in the animation of 
public spaces (Glover, 2017) during, through and as activism and protest.

Dissent, unrest and collectivity can be understood across many 
disciplines, each bringing varying perspectives on a central 
theme—active protest—but understandings of current cultural-political 
contexts through critical approaches to leisure studies and event 
studies have much to offer within these debates. This special issue will 
be devoted to examining relationships between leisure, activism and the 
urban environment. We invite academics, activists, and protest 
organisers with an interest in critical conceptual and theoretical 
approaches to leisure, culture, media, tourism and events studies to 
submit papers relevant to understanding how activism animates urban space.

We aim to assemble a collection of papers exploring the relationships 
between:

·       events of dissent, protest, civil disobedience, resistance;
·       activism as leisure in urban environments;
·       activism, creativity and the animation of urban space, e.g., 
through public performance, art, theatre, graffiti, sport, music, 
architecture, etc.;
·       the urban imaginary of space and protest: social and political 
aspects of cities beyond territory; psycho-geographies, imagined 
communities;
·       uses of media (e.g., photography, documentary filmmaking, music, 
or social media) in articulations of otherness, belonging, and urbanity.

We welcome full papers and research notes related to current social 
movements that are authored, or co-authored, by activists or organisers. 
If you are an activist/organiser interested in contributing to the 
special issue, and less familiar with writing for academic publication, 
we recommended that you contact one of the guest editors first. We can 
then discuss how best to support you with converting your idea into a 
potential submission.


We also invite papers exploring diverse methodologies and critical 
approaches to researching activism, protest and dissent, including 
arts-based approaches, as well as attending to researcher-participant 
relationships in understanding activism, leisure, and the animation of 
the urban environment.

Guest co-editors represent multidisciplinary areas of events, cultural 
studies, and leisure studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK:

·       Ian R. Lamond ((I.Lamond /at/ leedsbeckett.ac.uk))
·       Brett Lashua ((B.Lashua /at/ leedsbeckett.ac.uk))
·       Chelsea Reid ((C.Reid /at/ leedsbeckett.ac.uk))

*Submission Details*

The deadline for full manuscripts to be submitted is *31 January 2019. 
*A typical manuscript for this journal should be 7,000-8,000 words. This 
limit includes tables, references, figure captions, footnotes, and 
endnotes. A typical Research Note for this journal should be 4,000-5,000 
words. For further details, please visit the journal's *Instructions for 
Authors* 
<http://tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rlst20&page=instructions?utm_source=CPB&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JMI02483>*.*
**
*Timeline*

  * Call for papers: *10 July 2018*
  * Submission deadline: *31 January 2019*
  * Review process manuscripts returned to authors: *31 May 2019*
  * Revision process final drafts: *30 August 2019*

*References*

Gilchrist, P., & Ravenscroft, N. (2013). Space hijacking and the 
anarcho-politics of leisure. /Leisure Studies/, /32/(1), 49-68.

Glover, T. D. (2015). Animating public space. In S. Gammon & S. 
Elkington (Eds.), /Landscapes of Leisure: Space, Place and Identities 
/(pp. 96-109).  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lamond, I. R., & Spracklen, K. (2015). /Protests as Events: Politics, 
Activism and Leisure. /London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Lamond, I. R. (2018). The challenge of articulating human rights at an 
LGBT ‘mega-event’: a personal reflection on Sao Paulo Pride 2017. 
/Leisure Studies/, /37/(1), 36-48.

Lashua, B. D., & Baker, S. (in press). Urban subversion and mobile 
cinema: Leisure, architecture and the “kino-cine-bomber”. /Leisure 
Sciences./

Pavoni, A. (2017). /Controlling Urban Events: Law, Ethics and the 
Material/. London: Routledge.
//

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