Reclaiming the ‘L’ word: Leisure studies and Higher Education in neo-liberal times

Leisure is a major sphere of both private and public life. It is thus of concern that the identity and profile of leisure in the Higher Education curriculum of the UK has become less obvious over the past decade. This trend is not peculiar to leisure studies; the social sciences as a whole are considered to be under threat as neo-liberal discourse increasingly informs Higher Education strategic management. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential reasons for the reduced status of leisure studies in HE institutions within the UK and to contribute to a theoretical basis of a counter-argument for the social and economic benefits of retaining leisure studies as a unifying field. We present a loosely diachronic account of the emergence and growth of leisure studies as a subject field, followed by a discussion of the impact of neo-liberal thinking on UK Higher Education. The principal challenge to leisure studies is to establish its importance and relevance to others within the social sciences. We propose a need for more academics to engage in ideational ‘border crossings’ to advance thinking in different subjects and disciplines; those subjects that may be under threat in the current climate of Higher Education (like leisure studies) may benefit from exploring opportunities to collaborate with those from outside of their immediate subject area.