The Messiness of Leisure Research: Explorations of Research Processes

This book illustrates tensions, absences, and unresolved challenges experienced in research – experiences that are so often left out of the conventional, smooth, and linear discussion of research that generally appears in academic publications.

Laying bare the messy details of research is increasingly important because leisure scholars’ engagement in reflexive, collaborative, critical, arts-based, participative, and social justice-oriented research heightens the need to explore and examine significant moments that punctuate and undoubtedly shape both research and researchers. The chapters in this book make explicit the negotiations, contradictions, questions, doubts, and uncertainties often underlying research. As loose ends of the research process are unravelled, this book inspires researchers across disciplines to expand the ways we come to know and do research.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Sciences.

Felice Yuen is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Her research focuses on leisure and its impact on individuals and the communities in which they live. More specifically, she is interested in leisure as a context for healing.

Karen Gallant is Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Her research examines and highlights the role of community-based recreation settings and experiences in facilitating social inclusion, and explores the nature and implications of those interactions for well-being.