Youth Sports and Leisure Activities in Public Spaces: Cultural Production and Social Inclusion

Raúl Hernández-Villasol

《International Leisure Review》 11卷1期 (2022/06) Pp. 79-90

https://doi.org/10.6298/ILR.202206_11(1).0005

摘要

In changing contexts, youth cultural patterns are subject to the existing dynamism between cultural production and cultural reproduction. In this work, we analyzed and compared how youth game and sport practices can be self-managed and developed autonomously, without adult supervision. We observed public spaces, such as open basketball courts, from two different locations: Terrassa (nearby Barcelona, Spain) and Athens (Greece). The framework is based on the right to leisure as provided in Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations 1989. The ethnography at hand shows that peer contact in a shared space can produce more inclusive activities in informal practices than in source formal ones, hence diversity and inclusion across gender, age, and socio-cultural background is better preserved. Also, among young informal groups, a conducive environment is established which enables teenagers to develop creative and autonomous activities and cultural relationships.

關鍵字

Teenagers ； leisure ； interculturality ； games ； youth cultural productions