Lecture 1
People in the network society
We live in another society than 50 years ago, more or less everything is connected. This is
often very nice but not always because it can be overwhelming. (e.g. Afghanistan, we know
everything that is happening there and everything that is related to it as well. political
issues might be related to regional and/or economic issues.)
Everything these days is connected and the reason is the rise of networks.
More choices
To what extent can different ways of leisure replace traditional institutions (eg spend a
weekend at F1 instead of with family)
What are practises?
- Organized context-related activities of groups of people
- Ways of acting (doings and sayings) that are characterized by a routine use of specific
rules and resources and situated in time and space.
- Social practices show continuity and regularity over a certain time period and in certain
space contexts
Steered more by practical than discursive consciousness
(what is simply done VS what can be said) > people get annoyed when you ask about it
because it is so normal.
Routines constitute order and coherence in the complexity of everyday life.
- Examples in leisure/tourism research: winter sports, cooking, music, film
- Leisure/tourism practises are created, developed and maintained by:
Individuals/ consumers – producers / co-producers – other actors
Structures that result from the actions of participants > rules
Right now we are in the lecturing practise. Most of these practises have a routine
character. Practises give people safety because of familiarity
Relevance of practise theory
- Stronger focus on context of acting + interconnectedness:
Practise approach may deal with new complexities of network society and (virtual)
relationship between individuals and the relational context of choices.
- Advantages of this perspective for capturing, more concretely;
How contemporary leisure/tourism practice/activities emerge, maintain, transform
and given meaning: choices and experience?
What individuals induces or not to become participants in a range of practices
(‘careers”/dynamic within individual practice) joining or leaving?
Why are people joining a certain activity and why not? And why might they suddenly quit
after many years?
- Practise approach is widely known: “practice” turn in social sciences and leisure/tourism
studies.
,- A multidisciplinary/intergrated perspective fits very well with the core of Leisure and
Tourism studies
Studying from a cross-border instead of monodisciplinary perspective
Insights of several monodisciplines can be included (from economy, psychology,
sociology, geography, marketing, etc.)
Integrated perspective on leisure and tourism practices in courses MLTS
MLTS triangle
Positions of MLTS triangle
- LCS: development and quality of spaces and places– enjoyment and consumption of leisure
- EMLT: selling and marketing of needs and experiences
- ISDLO: organizational and policy strategies and services to involve and affect consumers
- ULTAE: to adapt to global and fast changing leisure markets leisure and tourism
organizations deal with change management and innovating products
- ALI: focuses on practice approaches which affect all sides of the triangle
How to study whose practises?
Thus:
- We need a ‘theory of acting’ that overcomes the ‘actor-context’ dualism.
- For this framework we need both actor and context-related theories and not only actor
or context related bodiesof knowledge
- Theory that creates linkages between the context of acting and actors or individuals
making choices and having needs and motives
- Important source of inspiration: Structuration theory of Giddens (besides Bourdieu,
Latour)
Structuration theory
Actors in leisure practice approach
An actor is anything that acts: individuals, public bodies, authorities, organisations,
institutions, etc
Consumer: tourists, sport participants, visitors of theatre/cinema
, Entrepreneurs
Stakeholders
Policy officials (municipality, province, central government
Inhabitants
- Actors contribute to differences in the constitution and consequences (effects/impacts)
of leisure practices
- Actors can make a difference in the constitution of practices because they vary in
(access to)
Bodily appearance, health, strength, sex
Emotional set-up
Values, life goals
Socialization
Social position
Knowledge, skills and experience
- Background variables give the ability to perform certain practices, and make performing
other practices less obvious.
The contextuality of action
- Material or physical-biotical conditioning
The embodiment of humans
Weather conditions
The material world humans live in
Physical characteristics supply/ environmental performance
(sea, woods, modern, traditional – whatever do you prefer?)
- Time-spatial conditioning
Situation in time and space
Time order and season (holiday season, staggering of holidays (> when your children
are in school eg then you don’t have a choice)
Accessibility of leisure facilities (opening/business hours of leisure facilities)
Distance to supply, setting or location (related to mobility)
- Structural conditioning
Cultural dimensions (rules of action)
Symbolic order (images, narratives, opinions, provisioning of information,
promotion)
Legitimate order (regulations, laws, ruled of the game)
Power dimension (resources for action)
Material resources (characteristics of supply (prices, quality, atmosphere)
standard of living, technology, innovations)
Organisational resources (political balance of power, social networks, organisation
of supply)
In the leisure practise approach: contextuality of action includes more than supply
characteristics.
