Crossing Boundaries: Some Highlights from the 2000 Leisure Research Symposium, Phoenix, AZ.

The 2000 Leisure Research Symposium was, due to space limitations, literally separated from the Convention Center and many of its on-site activities. Although the Symposium was only two blocks from the rest of the NRPA action, the distance was symbolic of the ongoing struggles faced by leisure researchers and recreation professionals. Both groups routinely juggle heavy workloads, struggle with changing mandates, wrestle with budgetary pressures, and entrench and adjust their philosophical positions. These challenges, among others, make it difficult to fully understand each other's worlds. In other words, many boundaries must be crossed if researchers and practitioners are to work together effectively.

In this review we highlight some papers from the Leisure Research Symposium which illustrate areas of solid cooperation between professionals and researchers, as well as papers and sessions that addressed issues beyond the mandate of, or in conflict with, the current state of recreation program delivery. This review provides just a glimpse of the diverse issues covered in the Symposium; in total, 25 sessions were offered but only five are mentioned here. In the spirit of fostering continued dialog we have included, at the end of each discussion, a few questions and statements that may inform professionals and guide future research.

Practitioners and researchers are not the only people who occasionally lose track of each other. Researchers, even multi-disciplinary ones, are often isolated from people outside of their immediate community. For example, leisure researchers and consumer researchers have developed largely independent but parallel agendas. Two marketing professors were invited to the opening session of the Leisure Research Symposium in an attempt to bridge this gap. John Lastovicka (Arizona State University) used his time to outline the development of a comprehensive advertising campaign aimed at reducing drinking and driving among teenage males. The discussion following his presentation centered around the overall effectiveness of the ad campaign, alcohol consumption as leisure experience, and the roles of recreation agencies in developing public service campaigns of this nature. Bob Madrigal (University of Oregon) used the context of spectator sports to outline innovative ways of studying the ebb and flow of people's leisure experiences. He criticized leisure researchers for too often measuring experiences after they have happened to the exclusion of studying nuances of leisure experience as they happen. Questions that might be explored include:

* Promotion efforts by most agencies in our field are decidedly simplistic based on current standards for television, radio, internet, and even print media. Consequently, many people have argued that we must improve our standards in this area. Is it possible, however, for recreation professionals to "sell out" their ideals by getting too involved in advertising? How do we know if or when we cross that line?

* To what extent should leisure pursuits like drinking, gambling, spectating, and cruising be integrated with traditional recreation programming? Or should they be discouraged in all contexts?

* How might insights into the ebb and flow of leisure experiences inform or improve our recreation programming efforts?

In a session on leisure and the family, Christy Huff, Brian Hill, and Patti Freeman challenged the field to develop an overarching research agenda on family recreation. They shared the results of their Delphi study in which experts in family studies and recreation studies generated a list of priority areas for research including increasing family cohesion and responding to growing demands on family time. Sue Shaw, however, reminded us that family structure and family leisure rarely match up to the idealized way we talk about family. Interview data from her study led to an understanding that family leisure sometimes increases the burden and sense of responsibility felt by parents. Ramon Zabriskie and Bryan McCormick noted that family structure has profound impacts on people's satisfaction with family leisure and they provided additional data showing that balanced leisure activities contributed to higher levels of satisfaction with family life. Thus, an interesting debate remains open for how our field might engage with family leisure:

* Family recreation deserves increased attention from leisure researchers.

* Alternative family structures have been under-researched.

* Family recreation must not be idealized; it can be a burden as well as a benefit.

Although the leisure and family session attracted primarily academics, a high percentage of the audience in the greenways session were practitioners. Steve Burr and Dale Blahna outlined the process underlying Utah's Great Outdoors Open Space Project wherein 250 stakeholders statewide provided input into the long-term planning process. They identified clear distinctions between rural and urban stakeholders. Urban participants consistently advocated preservation and protection of open space for non-use or intrinsic value. By contrast, rural stakeholders were particularly concerned with maintaining instrumental and economic uses (including recreation and tourism) of the land. Peter Cunningham and Eric Frauman drew on Means-Ends theory in their study of relationships between urban greenway attributes (history, amenities, nature, and stewardship), benefits sought by the users, and values held by users. Fifteen complete "chains" were identified linking these three concepts. Much of the discussion in this session focused on managerial implications arising from the identified links because people's appreciation of history, the natural environment, and various activities created a diverse set of challenges. For example, although history emerged as a recognizable attribute (the trail where the data were collected links with a major Civil War battlefield), history did not link with benefits sought and personal values to the extent that other attributes did. Questions to consider further:

* Will Burr and Blahna's conclusions hold true in eastern and southern regions of the country or is this rural-urban dichotomy unique to the mountain west?

* To what extent should managers of greenways focus on exploiting existing linkages to improve management and marketing strategies? Should managers focus instead on developing desired linkages between amenities, benefits sought, and visitors' value systems?

How to Include Diverse Voices

As North America becomes increasingly multi-cultural, we are challenged by a leisure delivery system still dominated, especially in top management positions, by Caucasian males. Cheryl Beeler noted that in the early 1990s, white men occupied 96 percent of top level municipal and county-level park and recreation administrative positions. How do we include diverse voices in our dialogue? In a session titled Leisure and Diversity, Karen Fox noted that "the Native Hawaiian term for leisure combines two elements: 1) manawa as the `lingering, gentle ebb of water across a tranquil bay' and 2) nanea as the `relaxing or at ease with gentle voices of the birds.'" She added, "The very definition of the words begins a different conversation about leisure" than is traditionally heard at our conferences and in our planning sessions. In that same session, Kim Pearce and Beth Kivel contended "that North American leisure studies' traditional attention to the empirical verification of racial difference based on fixed, essential identities has precluded our ability to take seriously that `race' is a social construction." They added, "In leisure studies, `race' has not yet been examined in terms of a discourse, but rather as an essential marker of identity that shapes individuals apart from the ideologies in which they are constituted." "Consider," they said, "the terms in our literature that are theoretically abstract yet grounded in the discursive grammar of racism: `under participation,' `marginalized,' `innercity,' `at-risk.' These terms emerge from a racist discourse because they are typically associated with persons of color and highlight the assumption that whiteness is the norm." Two questions posed to provoke further discussion:

* How do we meaningfully include diverse voices in our dialogue? What voices are yet to be heard?

* How do we get beyond marginality and ethnicity in our study of leisure and with respect to recreation and park delivery?

Several papers presented in the leisure, geography, and spatial analysis session focused on park land accessibility. Sarah Nicholls' Geographic Information System (GIS) comparison of two adjacent Texas cities revealed that "as the crow flies" analyses can create very different impressions of access to urban parks than do street-based analyses. She also found that the levels of access to neighborhood parks were higher in a smaller city, but the distribution pattern of parks in a larger city was perceived to be more equitable. Rob Porter and Michael Tarrant found that federal tourism sites (including campgrounds, wilderness areas, and National Forests) were not, in the selected study area in the southeastern United States, equally distributed when compared with the race of most nearby residents. Questions that might be asked:

* How do changing park development patterns, say from "square" self-contained neighborhood parks to linear greenways, change park access and use patterns?

* To what extent should we be concerned if park access is considered unequal among various groups within a community?

* To what extent should federal open space acquisitions be determined by the quality and uniqueness of on-site amenities versus proximity to population concerns? Should our responses be similar for state/provincial and local level decisions?

Another session focused on leisure meanings and place attachment. Alan Bright and Susan Barro reported some interesting relationships between recreation activities, recreation settings, and other behaviors. For example, firearm hunters who valued introspection while hunting were more likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior than were hunters for whom introspection was not important. Likewise, bow hunters, anglers, and wildlife viewers for whom aesthetics were important were more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviors than were those for whom aesthetics are not important. Kelly Bricker and Deb Kerstetter studied meaning and place attachment among whitewater recreation participants and found that as level of specialization increased so did the number of place meanings tied to specific locations along the rivers. Andy Mowen and Alan Graefe examined attitudes toward corporate sponsorships in park contexts and found that sponsorships of local parks and events were more favorably received than were sponsorships of state and national parks. Further consideration of the following issues would be helpful:

* Do people care more about environmental issues if parks are beautiful and well kept, or does their awareness become heightened if parks are less attractive and in poor repair?

* If people are more specialized and attach a greater number of meanings to place, will this translate into more support for environmental causes and for park and recreation agencies?

* Are sponsorships a viable funding alternative for public parks? What positive and negative outcomes may accrue over time if park sponsorships are pursued? Does the "fit" of the sponsoring company vis a vis the park setting matter?

In Denver, the 2001 Leisure Research Symposium will be housed in the convention center along with the NRPA educational sessions. Everyone -- practitioners and researchers alike -- is invited to join us as we examine the evidence and debate the issues in sessions like those described above.

References

Beeler, C. S. (1993). National comprehensive salary and benefits study. Arlington, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Bricker, K. S., & Kerstetter, D. L. (2000). Whitewater recreationists and the meaning they attach to special places: An exploratory analysis of the role of specialization. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 6). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Bright, A. D., & Barro, S. C. (2000). The effects of the meaning of wildlife-related recreation participation on environmental behavior. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 8). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Burr, S. W., & Blahna, D. J. (2000). Stakeholder attitudes in assessing outdoor recreational and open space needs in Utah: A rural-urban dichotomy. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 9). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Cunningham, P. H., & Frauman, E. (2000). Greenway attributes, benefits sought, and values held by greenway users. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 11). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Fox, K. M. (2000). Manawa nanea: Native Hawaiian leisure. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 16). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Huff, C.. Hill, B. J., & Freeman, P. A. (2000). Development of a family recreation research agenda. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 26). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Lastovicka, J., & Madrigal, R. (2000, October 11). Keynote speakers at the Opening Session, Consumer-based Leisure Research: Issues and Challenges. Phoenix, AZ: Nation al Recreation and Park Association, Leisure Research Symposium.

Mowen, A. J., & Graefe, A. R. (2000). Attitudes toward corporate sponsorships and their relationship with recreation involvement, place attachment, and motivations. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 45). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Nicholls, S. (2000). Measuring the accessibility and equity of neighborhood parks: A case study using GIS. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 46). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Pearce, K. D., & Kivel, B. D. (2000). Examining leisure and Arace@: The shift from identity to discourse. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 49). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Porter, R., & Tarrant, M. (2000). Federal tourism sites and environmental justice: A GIS based inquiry. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 52). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Shaw, S. M. (2000). Ideals versus reality: Contradictory aspects of family leisure. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 56). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Zabriskie, R. B., & McCormick, B. P. (2000). An examination of family leisure contributions to family life satisfaction. In D. M. Samdahl & M. E. Havitz (Eds.) Abstracts from the 2000 Symposium on Leisure Research (p. 71). Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Mark E. Havitz is a professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He is a fellow in the Academy of Leisure Sciences. Diane M. Samdahl is an associate professor in Recreation and Leisure Studies and an affiliate faculty member in the Women's Studies Program at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.

Research Update is edited by Cheryl A. Estes, Ph.D., assistant professor in recreation and leisure studies at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.