Leisure Settings As Contested Spaces

Leisure settings often predominantly fall into two types of spaces: 1) Public Space, and 2) Private-Public Space. Public spaces are situated in this discussion as location managed by governmental entities at the behest of the general citizenry. While private-public spaces are presented here as locations managed by private commercial interests but are generally accommodating to a variety of people in society based on the payment of a fee, the earning of membership, or an invitation. Despite a greater access to utilize and enjoy the provisions in these two spaces in contemporary societies, they are still rife with exercises and abuses in power alongside displays of perceived and actual violence. What is posited here is that public and private-public spaces are contested spaces in the erection of gender dominance and for the creation of disposable populations of Race and class. Thus, in order to envision and build more “just” spaces it is imperative for researchers to explore a range of emancipatory theories from an even more diverse set of scholarship. The thoughts of Amílcar Cabral, the Guinea-Bissau leader, on contested and liberated zones are incorporated into this discussion to better situate the risks and dangers in the contested spaces of the public and private-public. Within this discussion, there is an overt critique of leisure settings as historically and presently rendered. Lastly, Cabral also provides additional consideration for the question of what type of new spaces must be created to overcome the social control that is inherent in gendering and disposability.