Deviant Leisure: Consuming Harm

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

We live in a culture dominated by consumption, within which consumerism as a form of self-expression appears to have superseded more traditional markers of identity. The democratization of luxury ensures that designer labels, exotic foreign holidays, and the VIP club experience are now tantalizingly within reach. The papers within this panel draw upon a ‘Deviant Leisure’ theoretical perspective in order to explore the range of harms that are associated with commitment to spectacular forms of leisure and consumption. Oliver Smith examines the harms associated with the democratization of the luxury holiday industry. Stuart Taylor examines the archetypal example of competitive consumer culture – the alcohol (and substance use) driven night time economy. Here, a deviant leisure approach illustrates a number of harms associated with the mono-cultural, socially exclusive night time city centre. Taylor follows this critique through to its natural conclusion, asking what a deviant leisure approach can offer in terms of harm reduction or instigating cultural change within these problematic sites of excess. In a similar vein, Tammy Ayres moves beyond the normalization/deviance debate that predominates within recreational drug literature and seeks to examine the relationship between consumer culture and the commodification of harmful behaviours.

Sub Unit

• Area III. Theoretical Explanations of Crime and Criminal Behavior / 2. Critical, Conflict and Feminist Perspectives

Individual Presentations

• Honeymoons, Holidays and Harm: Status Vacations as Deviant Leisure - Oliver Smith, Plymouth University, UK

• Drugs, Leisure, Consumption and Harm - Tammy Ayres, University of Leicester

• Intervening with Deviant Leisure - Stuart Taylor, Liverpool John Moores University

Chair

• Thomas Raymen, Plymouth University, UK