In current academic debates, leisure is increasingly defined as a discursive construction originating both from the specific meanings created by individuals, and the institutionalizing processes that legitimate certain experiences and their spatial-temporal conditions as "leisure". As a result of social construction and the different social conditions existing at a certain historical moment in different societies, the borders among the various aspects of leisure are becoming more and more blurred; as is the case, for instance, with the borders between leisure and work activities. Such...

Youth are, by definition, the future. This book brings initial analyses to bear on youth in the five BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which are home to nearly half of the world's youth. Very little is known about these youth outside of their own countries since the mainstream views on 'youth' and 'youth culture' are derived from the available literature on youth in the industrialized West, which is home to a small part of the world's youth. This book aims to help fill in this gap.The handbook examines the state of youth, their past, present and permits the...

This volume addresses the rich and varied thoughts, concepts, approaches and leisure practices in sixteen countries of three continents---Australia, Asia and Africa. The chapters showcase the diversity in the forms and ways in which the idea and practice of leisure have developed across space and time. However, the common thread through the chapters is that concepts and practices of leisure are found all over the world, from pre-historic settlements to the present-day consumer societies. Seemingly, being at leisure is a capacity of the human species present at birth and which develops in a...