ABSTRACT Suicide rates are on the rise and subsequently more people, also known as suicide survivors, are left to grieve these types of losses. Yet, there has been limited examination and understanding of how individuals living through such experiences can potentially cope with and grow from this type of loss. Meaning-making through and engagement in leisure activities has been identified as a potential resource that may help individuals make sense of their lives and provide them with a liberating and healing opportunity. Therefore, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to identify the ways in which leisure may help individuals grieving suicide loss in their recovery, with a particular emphasis on how meaning-making and engagement through leisure may help to reinstate a more (a) joyful life, (b) connected life, (c) discovered life, (d) composed life, and (e) empowered life for suicide survivors.

ABSTRACT Social media is now a central communication centre within social worlds bound by particular leisure interests. In the digital age, leisure participants are able to generate and share bespoke, archival content and thus project nuanced messages regarding leisure experiences to their social networks. Adopting an interpretive approach to analyzing multimodal components of cyclists’ Instagram posts tagged with the popular hashtag #fromwhereiride, this study sought to explore meaning embedded within cyclists’ social media discourse. Five overarching themes emerged which suggested through social media, cyclists seek to project nuanced constructions of the self through a range of cultural, embodied, and mobility-related practices. Our analysis shows that social media is a platform through which leisure serves as a late-modern backdrop for social class and gender power struggles. This research contributes original insights regarding the role of social media discourse in leisure whilst providing a foundation for future research.

ABSTRACTIn the same way, as society has been experiencing significant changes in recent years, sport practice has evolved to acquire extraordinary importance, both socially and economically. At the moment, we are faced with a wide range of sports related to nature and outdoors as an alternative to sporting activities that were done traditionally. This diversity is precisely one of the reasons why there is still no unanimity between authors when it comes to establishing a single term that comprises such a large field of physical activities. Thus, these new sports can be denominated nature sports, adventure sports, alternative sports or lifestyle sports, among others. A descriptive and exploratory bibliometric study of the articles included in the multidisciplinary Scopus (Elsevier) database was carried out in order to analyse the current scientific production related to nature sports. Thus, it was found that of the 223 papers selected, a quarter of them use the term extreme sports to refer to sports practise in nature and only 5% use the term nature sports. The results obtained show the growing interest of the scientific community for the study of this subject in the last decade, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom and France and in the areas of social sciences, medicine and health care, business, administration and accounting.

ABSTRACTThe events industry is facing rapid societal change. Issues such as professionalization of the industry, competing funding streams, a crowded market, and decreasing access to volunteer labour are creating an environment of need for solutions. This paper proposes the application of lean thinking as a platform for simplification and continuous improvement in the event industry as a case example of potential broader relevance to the leisure industry. It scopes the event industry context, discusses the concept of lean, and proposes the testing of lean as a philosophy and methodology to assist event organizers and their volunteers navigate the changing event industry context. This paper also examines the potential benefits of lean to time poor volunteers to maximize the value of their participation.

ABSTRACTSaxon Switzerland (Sächsische Schweiz), a region close to the city of Dresden on the river Elbe, is in fact a small mountain range with steep rocks. Even in the nineteenth century, people started climbing the sandstone and developed a proud tradition of strict ethical rules. The use of ladders or any other devices was not allowed. Organized in small clubs, the climbers developed their own identity with a strong feeling of independence. After World War II however, the climbers were forced to join the new socialist sports organizations. The communist functionaries tried to re-define climbing as a conventional sport, but the climbers continued to dream of liberty, friendship, nature and adventure. There was thus considerable friction between the German Democratic Republic officials and the climbers. Climbing became a way of escaping from the socialist society. With the help of different sources, such as interviews with contemporary witnesses, magazine articles and summit registers, this conflict is described and analyzed in the present paper.

"Feminisms in leisure studies: advancing a fourth wave." Annals of Leisure Research, 22(2), pp. 266–267

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to understand how the established biomedical perspective on the body enables and constrains participation in physical activity. Based on a sociological standpoint, an exercise intervention with middle-aged women is analysed through empirical material from observation (N = 57), focus groups (N = 51) and individual follow-up interviews (N = 21). The article finds that spinning is a highly routinized and structured activity that entails a prevailing health-promoting control of the emotions to complete and a scarcity of emotional excitement. The article concludes that the biomedical perspective involves a rationalization of leisure time that excludes the emotional excitement usually associated with sports. The emotional body should not be neglected when the (in)active body is problematized in public health. Additionally, participation in long-term exercise would be more likely if couched in an understanding of the activity as an aim in itself.

This book is devoted to a current topic of the importance of peer-to-peer accommodation platforms for tourism behaviour, businesses and destinations. Most of the book focuses specifically on Airbnb...