Call for Papers

Leisure and Technologies
Special issue of Leisure Studies

Special Issue Editors:
Damion Sturm (Massey University, NZ) – d.sturm@massey.ac.nz
Garry Crawford (Salford University, UK) – G.Crawford@salford.ac.uk

Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 20, 2024

This special issue explores the relationship between leisure and technology. With contemporary leisure activities often deeply shaped, if not potentially determined, by technological advancements and developments, a broader understanding of leisure and technology is required. This special issue looks to probe some of the ways in which technologies underpin, influence, infringe upon and/or furnish creations, opportunities for and expressions of leisure, while also contemplating how these affordances and assemblages materialise and are mobilised for organisers, developers, consumers, and leisure-practitioners in and across diverse leisure settings and spaces.

The topic of leisure and technology is already well-traversed, notably via digital leisure studies which acknowledges and accounts for the accelerated proliferation of digital technologies, transformations, and hyper-digitalised experiences to create a new lexicon of digital leisure scholarship (Carnicelli et al., 2017; Lawrence, 2023; Redhead, 2015, 2016; Silk et al., 2016). Intriguingly, Lawrence and Crawford (2022) point to a foreclosing of the opportunities that this accelerated culture presupposes, with algorithms, big data and forms of artificial intelligence narrowing and targeting any allegedly unfettered digital leisure experiences on offer. Alternatively, affective traces can also resonate and persist within these socio-technological assemblages, with aspects of digital fandom, virtual leisure and mediatised experiences explored across various leisure settings and spaces (Crawford et al., 2022; Fletcher et al., 2024; Lawrence & Crawford, 2019; Ludvigsen & Petersen-Wagner, 2023; Manoli et al., 2024; Stoney & Fletcher, 2021; Sturm 2020, 2021). Additionally, the enhanced role and rise of esports and gamification has heavily impacted upon traditional and emerging leisure spaces (Crawford et al., 2019; Muriel & Crawford, 2018; Pizzo 2023; Xue et al., 2019), particularly as leisure itself increasingly becomes a technological construct, perceived as a set of digitalised experiences, and can take place in augmented or virtual spaces for participants and practitioners (Green, 2023; Hänninen et al., 2023; Iftikhar et al., 2023; Pizzo et al., 2024; Reed et al., 2023; Reichenberger, 2018; Schmidt, 2021).

The special issue invites contributions that may draw upon a full range of theoretical and methodological approaches, and with an empirical or conceptual focus. In addition to articles discussing familiar leisure activities such as tourism, sport, events, outdoor life, arts and culture, recreation and entertainment, we are also interested in studies that open the field of leisure studies to new practices and activities. Some of these approaches might draw upon but also extend conceptual understandings of digital leisure as well as forms of datafication, gamification and mediatisation, while perhaps offering utopia/dystopia visions for notions of technological determinism, project the futuristic possibilities of technological innovations, and/or offer insights into an array of broader digital tools and technologies that underpin different leisure participants, practitioners and practices.

Guided by a focus on the role, place and influence of technology in and around leisure, submissions may include, but are not limited to:

• Affect and Leisure Technologies
• Algorithms and/or Big Data and Datafication
• Artificial Intelligence and/or Machine Learning
• Arts, Cultural Industries and Technology
• Blockchain Technologies
• Digital Applications, Tools and Technologies
• Fandom and Technological Consumption
• Gaming, eSports and/or Gamification
• Historical, Retro and/or Analogue Technologies
• The Internet of Things
• The Future of Leisure Technologies
• The Metaverse and Leisure Studies
• Smart Technologies, Stadiums and/or Events
• Social Media and Parasocial Relations
• Sustainability and Sustainable Technologies
• Technology and Post-COVID Leisure
• Televisual Technologies and Innovations
• Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and/or Mixed Reality

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

All submissions should be relatively short papers – a maximum of x 8000 words including references.

All papers will be subject to blind review by a minimum of two referees. Neither acceptance nor place in the special edition is guaranteed.

TIMELINE:

20 December 2024: Abstracts (approximately 300 words) submitted to Damion Sturm (d.sturm@massey.ac.nz)

24 January 2025: Confirmations/feedback to contributors

7 July 2025: Invited contributors submit papers to the journal system.

July-September 2025: Papers in review and receive editors minor to major revision decisions.

October-November 2025: Papers revised and resubmitted, editorial introduction written and submitted.

December 2025: Papers re-reviewed and accepted.

Special Issue Publication mid-2026