This book brings together chapters that address questions of leisure, activism, and the animation of urban environments. The authors share research that explores the meaning and making of activist practices, events of dissent, and the arts in everyday life. Situated in a growing body of activist scholarship and social justice research, within the field of leisure studies, the contributions spotlight understandings and disruptions of public spaces in cities. These range from overtly political practices such as protest marches to recreational practices such as skateboarding and bicycling that remake cities through their contestations of space. Across the collection the chapters raise broader questions of civil society, whether it is research on youth activism, historical uses of public spaces by rightwing or racist groups, or interrogating the absence of leisure and closure of public spaces for people experiencing homelessness. Some chapters explore events, such as festivals as sites of resistance and social change. In others, grassroots neighbourhood activism through arts is centralised, or mega-events are framed through protest campaigns against bids to host the Summer Olympic Games. A central thread running through the chapters is the question of whose voices count and whose remain unheard in events of dissent in the city. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

Embodied Activisms explores how activists use their bodies to resist social norms, engage with institutions, and promote change. This book spans historical perspectives, current contexts, and the most current scholarly literature to interrogate how embodied activisms are read, performed, understood, and actualized. The studies in this volume address current, critical issues such as police accountability activism, the climate crisis, environmental concerns, and protests of Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Chapters analyze a wide range of nonviolent mobilization tactics, including silent protests, embodied witnessing, leisure spectacle demonstrations, performance art and other forms of creative practice, and rallies. Analyses engage with aspects of intersectionality in activism and critique diverse modes of embodied resistance in locations including East Central Europe, the Americas, and the Mediterranean region.

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 explores how cultural, social and political change happens through a unique analysis of the ‘ethical turn’ in skateboarding today. Insights shared by key change-makers and industry insiders cover themes including First Nations, Black and People of Color, skater-run creative innovations, anti-colonialism, anti-racism initiatives, and a growing focus on equity and empowering skaters historically discriminated against due to gender and/or sexuality. These dynamic changes are also connected to conceptual and theoretical frameworks from skate research, journalism, and sociology. This is a must-read for anyone interested in subcultures and social change.

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.

Report presents a series of analyses and recommendations for fostering the role of culture for sustainable development. Drawing on a global survey implemented with nine regional partners and insights from scholars, NGOs and urban thinkers, the report offers a global overview of urban heritage safeguarding, conservation and management, as well as the promotion of cultural and creative industries, highlighting their role as resources for sustainable urban development. Report is intended as a policy framework document to support governments in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Urban Development and the New Urban Agenda.

In every major city in the world there is a housing crisis. How did this happen and what can we do about it? Everyone needs and deserves housing. But today our homes are being transformed into commodities, making the inequalities of the city ever more acute. Profit has become more important than social need. The poor are forced to pay more for worse housing. Communities are faced with the violence of displacement and gentrification. And the benefits of decent housing are only available for those who can afford it. In Defense of Housing is the definitive statement on this crisis from leading urban planner Peter Marcuse and sociologist David Madden. They look at the causes and consequences of the housing problem and detail the need for progressive alternatives. The housing crisis cannot be solved by minor policy shifts, they argue. Rather, the housing crisis has deep political and economic roots—and therefore requires a radical response.

Design academics and practitioners are facing a multiplicity of challenges in a dynamic, complex, world moving faster than the current design paradigm which is largely tied to the values and imperatives of commercial enterprise. Current education and practice need to evolve to ensure that the discipline of design meets sustainability drivers and equips students, teachers and professionals for the near-future. New approaches, methods and tools are urgently required as sustainability expands the context for design and what it means to be a 'designer'. Design activists, who comprise a diverse range of designers, teachers and other actors, are setting new ambitions for design. They seek to fundamentally challenge how, where and when design can catalyse positive impacts to address sustainability. They are also challenging who can utilise the power of the design process. To date, examination of contemporary and emergent design activism is poorly represented in the literature. This book will provide a rigorous exploration of design activism that will re-vitalise the design debate and provide a solid platform for students, teachers, design professionals and other disciplines interested in transformative (design) activism. Design Activism provides a comprehensive study of contemporary and emergent design activism. This activism has a dual aim - to make positive impacts towards more sustainable ways of living and working; and to challenge and reinvigorate design praxis,. It will collate, synthesise and analyse design activist approaches, processes, methods, tools and inspirational examples/outcomes from disparate sources and, in doing so, will create a specific canon of work to illuminate contemporary design discourse. Design Activism reveals the power of design for positive social and environmental change, design with a central activist role in the sustainability challenge. Inspired by past design activists and set against the context of global-local tensions, expressions of design activism are mapped. The nature of contemporary design activism is explored, from individual/collective action to the infrastructure that supports it generating powerful participatory design approaches, a diverse toolbox and inspirational outcomes. This is design as a political and social act, design to enable adaptive societal capacity for co-futuring.

The studies in this collection seek to examine the notions of ‘linguistic diversity’ and ‘hybridity’ through the lenses of new critical theories and theoretical frameworks embedded within the broader discussion of the sociolinguistics of globalization. The chapters include critical inquiries into online/offline languages in society, language users, language learners and language teachers who may operate ‘between’ languages and are faced with decisions to navigate, negotiate and invent or re-invent languages, local and global and virtual spaces. The research took place in contexts that include linguistic landscapes, schools, classrooms, neighborhoods and virtual spaces of Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, South Korea and the USA.