ABSTRACT
Part III of this book carries a special message for leisure studies. The mission of its seven chapters is to show how that field has extended itself through the SLP into adjacent areas of learning and practice (therefore we make no attempt to survey fully each field). In the past we have heard the occasional lament about the presumed failure of leisure studies scholars to get the word out to the wider world concerning what they have learned about leisure. Samdahl and Kelly (1999), for example, observed that far too often we fail to familiarize that world with our theory and research, be that world other academic and applied disciplines or the general public. More generally, Susan Shaw (2000) wrote that, when we do try to talk to people outside leisure studies, no one listens. Then, in 2010, UNESCO jettisoned leisure as a priority in its programmes of development, such activity now being reinterpreted by this organization as a comparatively trivial aspect of culture. ‘From past experience, WLO [World Leisure Organisation] understands that leisure is not accepted as a tool for development internationally or within the UN institutions and agencies. Leisure, per se, is still perceived as less important than “serious” matters, such as poverty reduction’ (Thibault, 2011, pp. 341–342).
