Riding, training and caring for horses are visceral experiences that require the immersion of both body and mind. This book provides an in-depth understanding of human–horse relationships and interactions as embodied in equestrian sport and leisure.As a closely focused ethnographic study of the horse world, it explores the key themes of partnership and collaboration in human–horse communication, the formation of individual and collective identities performed through involvement in ...

Humans and animals have developed multiple and complex interactions in the fields of tourism, leisure, and development. However, much of the existing research on how humans and animals interact in these fields has emerged from within the context of developed countries. As a result, little has been documented about human-animal interactions in the socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental contexts of countries in the Global South. Specifically, the diversity and complexity of interspecies ...

By exploring past, current, and future intersections between leisure and health, this book considers research and academic thought to reveal and critique the nuanced ways that leisure impacts health as well as considering how health professions use leisure as a 'tool'. Aided by the diverse chapters, readers will be challenged to explore future intersections between leisure and health using an overarching eco (ecological/environmental), bio(biological), psycho (psychological), social (socio...

Sport mega-events are more than just large-scale gatherings and celebrations of human athletic achievement; they are also arenas through which groups and individuals perform, reinforce, challenge and disrupt identities, power and status. Understanding that sport is widely recognised as a practice through which normative ideas of gender are both reinforced and challenged, this book explores how this is magnified in the context of sport mega-events with their associated global media attentio...

This is the first book to critically explore international leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic. It analyses the ways in which the pandemic has impacted upon our leisure practices and our leisure lives, focusing on three key spaces ・ public, private, and digital.The book seeks to understand how changes in leisure have led to transformations in the ways we have had to ‘do’ and ‘redo’ activities, such as incorporating digitalisation and distancing measures, as well as dealing with re...

Horses are perhaps the most common non-human animal to feature in planned events, but although there is considerable research on equestrian sport, there is virtually none on equestrian events. This book begins to address this gap, using the National Championships of the Icelandic Horse as an extended case study to explain in depth the process of managing an event, as well as the larger theoretical implications of events management. Drawing on diverse viewpoints and theoretical perspectives...

This innovative and timely volume moves beyond existing operational and pragmatic approaches to events studies by exploring sports events as social, cultural, political and mediatised phenomena. As the study of this area is developing there is now a need for critical and theoretically informed debate regarding conceptualisation, significance and roles.This edited collection explores the core themes of consumption, media technologies, representation, identities and culture to offer ...

Multispecies Leisure: Human-Animal Interactions in Leisure Landscapes seeks to ‘bring the animal in’ to the leisure studies domain and contribute to greater understanding of leisure as a complex, interwoven multispecies phenomenon.The emerging multidisciplinary field of human-animal studies encourages researchers to move beyond narrow focus on human-centric practices and ways of being in the world, and to recognise that human and non-human beings are positioned within shar...

Scholars working in the academic field of sport studies have long debated the relationship between sport and gender. Modern sport forms, along with many related activities, have been shown to have historically supported ideals of male superiority, by largely excluding women and/or celebrating only men’s athletic achievements. While the growth of women’s sport throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has extinguished the notion of female frailty, revealing that women can embody athletic quali...

Despite the mythology of sport bringing people together and encouraging everyone to work collectively to success, modern sport remains a site of exclusionary practices that operate on a number of levels. Although sports participation is, in some cases at least, becoming more open and meritocratic, at the management level it remains very homogenous; dominated by western, white, middle-aged, able-bodied men. This has implications both for how sport develops and how it is experienced by diffe...