Leisure studies and intersectionality
The challenge of understanding and researching the intersections of complex multiple inequalities has been a key focus for a range of social science disciplines over the past two decades. This paper considers the potential use of intersectionality for engaging more critically with the multiple interconnections of power, identity and discrimination. It outlines some key tenets of intersectionality: as a theoretical perspective; as a methodological approach and as a somewhat elusive and often more loosely termed ‘framework’. It proposes some possible contributions that intersectionality can make to leisure scholarship, and, importantly, offers an assessment of leisure’s potential to contribute to wider debates on intersectionality. We argue that thinking intersectionally is a useful means of analysing leisure as a dynamic interplay of individual expression and the social relations within which leisure occurs. This is demonstrated through reference to two examples where ‘thinking intersectionally’ can inform analyses of leisure, one on public leisure space and the second on leisure and embodiment.