This volume is the first to draw together theoretical reflection, empirical research, and critical reflection on practice occurring at the juncture of critical approaches in leisure studies and event studies within diverse explorations of deviance. It includes chapters on games and gaming; performing queerness; events around being kinkster; drugs and sex, LGBTQ+ events and activism, and goth subculture. These are combined with poetry, personal reflection and artwork, much of which has been created by contributors. The compendium draws on inquiry undertaken by contributors from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, as well as deviant leisure practitioners/event organisers. It seeks to expand the cultural and academic articulation of deviance into other disciplines and to develop new perspectives on deviant leisure and deviant leisure practice. It speaks to students, researchers, and practitioners working or interested in critical leisure and event studies, queer theory, cultural theory, burlesque/circus studies, media studies, and discourse studies.

This book brings together a collection of critical essays that challenge the existing dogma of leisure as an unmitigated social good, in order to examine the commodification and marketisation of leisure across a number of key sites. Leisure and consumer culture have become symbolic of the individual freedoms of liberal society, ostensibly presenting individuals with the opportunity to display individual creativity, cultural competence and taste. This book problematizes these assertions, and considers the range of harms that emerge in a consumer society predicated upon intense individualism and symbolic competition. Approaching the field of commodified leisure through the lens of social harm, this collection of essays pushes far beyond criminology’s traditional interest in ‘deviant’ forms of leisure, to consider the normalized social, interpersonal and environmental harms that emerge at the intersection of leisure and consumer capitalism. Capturing the current vitality and interdisciplinary scope of recent work which is underpinned by the deviant leisure perspective, this collection uses case studies, original research and other forms of empirical enquiry to scrutinise activities that range from alcohol consumption and gambling, to charity tourism; CrossFit training; and cosmetic pharmaceuticals. Drawn from researchers across the UK, US, Europe and Australia, Deviant Leisure: Criminological Perspectives on Leisure and Harm represents the first systematic attempt at a criminological consideration of the global harms of the leisure industry; firmly establishing leisure as a subject of serious criminological importance.

This book uses a series of case studies from the 'wave of terror across Europe' to rethink the relationships between harm, crime, deviance, leisure and capitalism.

This edited collection highlights the diversity and reach of global leisure studies and global leisure theory. It explores the impact of globalization on leisure, and the sites of resistance and accommodation found in local, virtual and global leisure spaces. Unlike any other collection on leisure studies, Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World is truly representative of the diversity of the large and growing leisure scholarship across the globe. It demonstrates how researchers in leisure studies and sociology of leisure are applying complex theory to their work, and how a new theory of global leisure is emerging.

In this Second Edition of his investigation into the relative nature of social deviance and how the public perceives it, author John Curra demonstrates that what qualifies as deviance varies from place to place, time to time, and situation to situation. Through thought-provoking examples that include the blue people of Kentucky, a woman who believes she is a vampire, autoerotic asphyxiators, and others, Curra illustrates that deviance cannot be explained in terms of absolutes, nor can it be understood apart from its social setting. This insightful book approaches sex, violence, theft, suicide, drugs, and mental disorders in such a way that definitive or objective judgments become impossible.

Can activism be considered a leisure activity? Can the Occupy movement, local campaigns for change and lone acts of personal resistance be understood as events? Within the field of Events Management the content of events is generally analyzed within three categories—culture, sport or business. Such a typology can be helpful as a heuristic for interpretation and analysis within a commercial paradigm. However, this framework overlooks and depoliticizes a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest. Protests as Events is the first book to explore activism as a leisure activity and protests as events; using a fresh interpretation of event to develop a new critical politics of events and leisure. Bringing together a range of cutting edge research from around the world, it explores a variety of protests through the lens of events studies and leisure in order to understand how the study of events management might be conceptualized in the protest space.

The everyday makeup of contemporary sport is increasingly characterised by a perceived explosion of 'deviance' - violence, drug taking, racism, homophobia, misogyny, corruption and excess. Whereas once these behaviours may have been subject to the moral judgments of authority, in the face of dramatic socio-cultural change they become more a matter of populist consumer gaze. In addressing these developments this book provides a new and insightful approach toward the study of 'deviance' in the realm of sport. New Perspectives in Sport and 'Deviance' awakens the sociology of sport to the possibilities of re-imagining 'deviance' and offers an evocative approach which will appeal both to academics and students in the field of sociology of sport and sociology of deviance.

Crime, Shame and Reintegration is a contribution to general criminological theory. Its approach is as relevant to professional burglary as to episodic delinquency or white collar crime. Braithwaite argues that some societies have higher crime rates than others because of their different processes of shaming wrongdoing. Shaming can be counterproductive, making crime problems worse. But when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be an extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just form of social control. Braithwaite identifies the social conditions for such successful shaming. If his theory is right, radically different criminal justice policies are needed - a shift away from punitive social control toward greater emphasis on moralizing social control. This book will be of interest not only to criminologists and sociologists, but to those in law, public administration and politics who are concerned with social policy and social issues.

Serious Leisure offers a comprehensive view and analysis of the current state of the sociology of leisure. Defining and differentiating the way people use their free time, Robert A. Stebbins divides such activity into categories of serious (skilled), casual (unskilled), and project-based (short-term) leisure that he further separates into a variety of types and subtypes. Together they comprise what he calls the serious leisure perspective. Stebbins sets out the basic concepts that make up the three leisure forms, focusing on their essential elements.Stebbins sees serious leisure realized by way of a set of foundational concepts—organization, community, history, lifestyle, and culture. He reviews the history and background of the concept of serious leisure and follows up with historical commentary. Finally, he examines the future and the importance of the serious leisure perspective in a globalizing world, and some of its critical links with other fields of knowledge and practice, notably the nonprofit sector and preventive medicine.Serious Leisure is a coherent and comprehensive resource setting out the main parameters of what is now widely recognized as an interdisciplinary research area. It will be of interest to sociologists, labor studies specialists, and economists.

Within events management, events are commonly categorised within two axes, size and content. Along the size axis events range between the small scale and local, through major events, which garner greater media interest, to internationally significant hallmark and mega events such as the Edinburgh Festival and the Tour de France. Content is frequently divided into three forms – culture, sport or business. However, such frameworks overlook and depoliticise a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest. This book brings together new research and theories from around the world and across sociology, leisure studies, politics and cultural studies to develop a new critical pedagogy and critical theory of events. It is the first research monograph that deals explicitly with the concept of critical event studies (CES), the idea that it is impossible to explore and understand events without understanding the wider social, cultural and political contexts. It addresses questions such as can the occupation and reclamation of specific spaces by activists be understood as events within its framework? And is the activity of activists in these spaces a leisure activity? If those, and other similar activities, can be read as events and leisure, what does admitting them into the scope of events management and leisure studies mean for our understanding of them and how the study of events management is to be conceptualised? This title will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students on events management and related courses and scholars interested in understanding the ways in which events are constructed by the social, the cultural and the political.