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Leisure activities are sources of layers and compartments of our identities. The leisure activities that are practicing contribute to a sense of belonging to or being apart from the surrounding people and their culture. Identity is marked by similarity, that is of the people like us, and by difference, of those who are not. It is quite normal to say that people are trying to integrate themselves to a specific culture, nation-state or global society by leisure interests and at same time discriminate themselves from others on grounds of culture, nationality or local society.
Followings are sub-themes and issues that might be the focus for envisioning world leisure during the Congress. |
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Leisure and Cultural Identity |
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Leisure is highly context-dependent, and identity is not an already-existing, fixed thing. We can talk of identities-in-progress rather than identity. More people are crossing boundaries and have multiple affiliations which question taken-for-granted stereotypes and produce multiple cultural identities while they are engaged in leisure activities. As these processes deepen and broaden, leisure is located between harmony and conflict. |
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How can leisure researchers, policy makers, and practitioners direct the processes of leisure to enhance harmony and quality of life, and promote international understanding and cooperation? |
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Leisure and National Identity |
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The contemporary rise in nationalist sentiment around the world can be regarded as an aspect of globalization, not just as a reaction to it. As political ideology has receded it has partly been replaced by the politics of national identity. We are faced with two apparently contradictory outcomes, the production of hybrid forms of identity and the production of traditional, fundamentalist, and nationalist identities. |
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If positive attitude change is possible through leisure activity and leisure provisions for the quality of life, how can we help in efforts to promote peace among the peoples who have hostile national identities or ethnic identities? How can we ensure a basic human right to leisure activities that are in harmony with the global norms and cosmopolitan social values of conflicting compatriots |
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Leisure and Global-Local Identity |
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Localism does not disappear when confronted with the impelling force of globalization. Leisure is the major disseminator of global identity and local identity in global society. In this vein local identity is a simultaneous struggle against dissolution and fragmentation; an intention to devour and at the same time a stout refusal to be eaten. |
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When a locale finds itself in conflict or harmony with another locale, what can we do to resolve the conflict and strengthen the harmony? How can we put on the agenda, all inclusive community, under the administration of less, partial and divisive identities? How can we provide policy and support programms designed to optimize leisure opportunities for developing communities as well as promoting international understanding and cooperation |
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