Nature-Based Leisure and Social Inclusion: Everyday Practices, Spatial Justice, and Well-Being

This session explores how nature-based leisure practices intersect with social inclusion, spatial justice, and well-being in contemporary societies. While access to green spaces and therapeutic environments is often framed as a health issue, it is fundamentally a sociological question: Who has access to restorative leisure? How do class, gender, age, and ethnicity shape everyday leisure practices in nature? How do urban transformations—such as gentrification and privatization—reconfigure access to public green spaces?

Drawing on perspectives from the sociology of leisure, urban sociology, and everyday life studies, this session invites contributions that critically examine:

• Social inequalities in access to nature-based leisure environments
• The role of public green spaces in fostering (or hindering) social inclusion
• Everyday leisure practices and their meanings across social groups
• Spatial justice, urban greening, and the politics of restorative landscapes
• Gender, class, and generational differences in nature-based leisure
• Comparative and cross-cultural analyses of inclusive leisure spaces

We welcome empirical, theoretical, and critical contributions that illuminate the social dimensions of nature, leisure, and well-being.