Leisure and Forced Migration (Advances in Leisure Studies)

Book info: Leisure and Forced Migration (Advances in Leisure Studies) (Paperback, 222 pages) – Routledge, 2023. Language: English.

This book offers a timely and critical exploration of leisure and forced migration from multiple disciplinary perspectives, spanning sociology, gender studies, migration studies and anthropology. It engages with perspectives and experiences that unsettle and oppose dehumanising and infantilising binaries surrounding forced migrants in contemporary society.

The book presents cutting edge research addressing three inter-related themes: spaces and temporalities; displaced bodies and intersecting inequalities; voices, praxis and (self)representation. Drawing on and expanding critical leisure studies perspectives on class, gender, sexuality and race/ethnicity, the book spotlights leisure and how it can interrogate and challenge dominant narratives, practices and assumptions on forced migration and lives lived in asylum systems. Furthermore, it contributes to current debates on the scope, relevance and aims of leisure studies within the present, unfolding global scenario.

This is an important resource for students and scholars across leisure, sport, gender, sociology, anthropology and migration studies. It is also a valuable read for practitioners, advocates and community organisers addressing issues of forced migration and sanctuary.

"Overall, this book would be valuable for both researchers and practitioners in organisations dealing with forced migration, as well as policymakers, in that forced migrants should not be depicted as passive victims waiting to be ‘assisted’ or ‘protected’ by others, but as people actively seeking to hold on to their own agency via leisure. It also opens up a research niche in leisure studies in that forced migrants are among the agents in this domain." – Pui Yan Flora Lau, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Leisure Studies

Nicola De Martini Ugolotti is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Physical Cultures at Bournemouth University, UK, and a member of Associazione Frantz Fanon in Turin, Italy.

Jayne Caudwell is Associate Professor in Social Sciences, Gender and Sexualities in the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work at Bournemouth University, UK.