Towards a ‘Politics of Hope’: Advocating a Sixth Phase of Feminist Leisure Research

My goal in this paper is to initiate a discussion of a sixth phase of feminist leisure research. A basic premise underlying a sixth phase is that research should not focus solely on understanding how women live and negotiate their leisure experiences within a totally gendered society, but rather how to break down and challenge gendered social structures. This sixth phase of scholarship will move feminist leisure research closer towards what Denzin (2000) referred to as a ‘politics of hope’. The nature of the texts created within a sixth phase of feminist leisure research would require feminist scholars to explicitly and critically examine their relationships with those with whom they presume to work or study. Thus, my second goal for this paper is to explore the need for feminist leisure researchers engaged in a sixth phase of feminist scholarship to “self-consciously work the hyphen” between Self and Other to integrate their voices with those of their participants (Fine, 1994).