Lynching as Leisure

Abstract

Within a critical theory focus, the documented history of lynching in photographic images and textual accounts provides a discussion of the sense of place when considering lynchings as leisure activities. The visual analysis of 433 lynching photographs and 327 accounts undergoing critical discourse analysis provided the process of researching the historical phenomenon in the context of leisure. This article seeks to summarize that research and presents case study examples to discuss the leisure implications in lynchings. The racial violence that is demonstrated in these spectacles is a discursive intersection of cultural critique, power relationships, and a reflection of their impact on place meanings and social interaction. To "read" lynchings as violent acts of leisure in various settings creates a vehicle for leisure research to contribute to dialogues on meaning(s) of place and the significance of race.

A people’s history of leisure studies: a historiography of four traditions of critical leisure studies

“…While the question of what is leisure was not often times taken on by the texts of this historiography, the impact of that question was the crucial focus of the texts. In this historiography, leisure was then also the site of socio-historical and socio-political dominance and resistance in society (Britton, 1991;D.R Williams, 2002;Hollingshead, 2008;Mani & Krishnamurthy, 2018;McAvoy, 2002;Mowatt, 2012;Santos & Buzinde, 2007;Smale, 2006;Sykes & Hamzeh, 2018;Theriault & Mowatt, 2018). This reality falls in line with seeing modern leisure practices through one of key scholars of this alternative or counter tradition, Chris four areas of privatization, individuation, commercialization, and pacification.…”

A Socio-Historical Overview of Black Youth Development in the United States for Leisure Studies

“…Lynching, the murder of African Americans by mobs (Foner 2011) was undertaken to both enforce segregation and incite terror. The Equal Justice Initiative (2015) found that over 4000 lynchings occurred between the Civil War and World War 2, sometimes in front of picnicking spectators (Mowatt 2012). Freed African Americans sought work in Southern cities but were frequently denied and forced to live in shantytowns (Foner 1990).…”