Annals of Leisure Research

Leisure as an Infrastructure of Care and Belonging in Contexts of Migration and Displacement

Global migration, forced displacement, and transnational mobility are reshaping societies worldwide. In these contexts, questions of belonging, wellbeing, and inclusion are becoming central to public policy and scholarly debate (Minca et al., 2022; Phillimore, 2024).

A substantial body of research shows that leisure can support psychosocial wellbeing, cultural continuity, identity expression, and social connection among migrant communities (Atalay & Korkut, 2025; De Martini Ugolotti, 2022; Hassanli, Walters, & Williamson, 2021; Kim et al., 2018; Murad & Versey, 2021; Spaaij et al., 2023; van der Klashorst, 2025). However, much of this scholarship focuses on individual participation or program outcomes.

This Special Issue shifts analytical attention to the organisational and institutional conditions that enable leisure to take shape, reframing it as an infrastructure rather than merely activity or participation. In this sense, leisure is conceptualised as an interconnected set of organisational, spatial, and governance configurations that structure how it is resourced, coordinated, and sustained over time in contexts of migration and displacement, including:

• organisations and community groups
• governance arrangements and funding regimes
• physical and digital spaces
• paid, voluntary, emotional, and embodied labour
• policies, resources, and governance frameworks

Through this infrastructural lens, leisure becomes a site where care and belonging are produced and negotiated, yet also unevenly distributed, stabilised or destabilised, and recognised or rendered invisible (De Martini Ugolotti, 2022). Leisure initiatives may foster solidarity and mutual support through mundane and grassroots forms of sociality (McGee & Pelham, 2018), yet the institutional and material infrastructures that sustain them are shaped by funding precarity, regulatory constraints, governance frameworks, and unequal distributions of labour, voice, and recognition (Hassanli, Walters, & Williamson, 2026). Without sustained attention to governance, access, and the allocation of responsibility, leisure as an infrastructure in migration contexts risks reproducing unequal forms of inclusion and care rather than transforming them.

The Special Issue therefore seeks contributions that critically examine these organisational and governance conditions, and their implications for care, belonging, and inequality, in relation to refugees, asylum seekers, international students, labour migrants, lifestyle migrants, internal migrants, and other groups experiencing mobility, displacement, or resettlement. Submissions from early-career scholars, researchers based in the Global South, and teams co-authoring with community or institutional partners are particularly encouraged.

Themes and Scope

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Governance, Funding, and Policy Conditions

• How funding structures, compliance requirements, and reporting obligations shape leisure initiatives in migration contexts
• The effects of short-term grants, project-based funding, and resource insecurity on continuity, planning, and sustainability
• Partnerships between migrant-led organisations and state, university, or NGO actors, including tensions, benefits, and accountability arrangements
• How policy settings influence recognition, legitimacy, and long-term viability of leisure initiatives

Organising Work, Labour, and Care

• The practical work involved in coordinating festivals, sports programs, arts initiatives, and community events
• The emotional, voluntary, and often unpaid labour that sustains leisure provision
• How responsibilities, risks, and burdens are distributed across migrant organisers, volunteers, practitioners, and institutions
• Leadership development, succession planning, and organisational continuity in resource-constrained settings

Space, Access, and Material Conditions

• Access to venues, community centres, public spaces, and digital platforms
• How location, transport, cost, and infrastructure shape participation
• The effects of venue insecurity, redevelopment, or spatial displacement on leisure continuity
• Material and spatial conditions that enable or constrain inclusive provision

Power, Inequality, and Recognition

• Who holds decision-making power within leisure organisations and whose voices shape priorities, programming, and resource allocation
• Which cultural practices are supported, funded, or marginalised within leisure provision
• How race, gender, age, disability, class, faith, and migration status shape access to leadership, resources, and institutional recognition
• How unequal inclusion is produced through everyday organisational and funding practices

Community-led and Alternative Approaches

• Migrant-led and co-designed approaches to organising leisure initiatives
• Models that redistribute decision-making power or reshape institutional partnerships
• Informal or hybrid arrangements that operate alongside or outside formal systems
• Leisure initiatives that reconfigure relationships between care, belonging, and governance, including through participatory or co-produced models

References

Atalay, D. C., & Korkut, U. (2025). Breaking the dichotomy: Non-binary belonging as a tool for inclusive societies. Ethnicities, https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/10.1177/1468796825138696

De Martini Ugolotti, N. (2022). Music-making and forced migrants’ affective practices of diasporic belonging. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(1), 92-109.

Hassanli, N., Walters, T., & Williamson, J. (2026). Leisure provision and refugee settlement: A scoping review with stakeholder engagement to inform policy and practice. Journal of Leisure Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2025.2601997

Hassanli, N., Walters, T., & Williamson, J. (2021). ‘You feel you’re not alone’: how multicultural festivals foster social sustainability through multiple psychological sense of community. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(11-12), 1792-1809.

Kim, J., Heo, J., Dvorak, R., Ryu, J., & Han, A. (2018). Benefits of leisure activities for health and life satisfaction among Western migrants. Annals of Leisure Research, 21(1), 47-57.

McGee, D., & Pelham, J. (2018). Politics at play: Locating human rights, refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle. Leisure Studies, 37(1), 22-35.

Minca, C., Rijke, A., Pallister-Wilkins, P., Tazzioli, M., Vigneswaran, D., van Houtum, H., & van Uden, A. (2022). Rethinking the biopolitical: Borders, refugees, mobilities…. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40(1), 3-30.

Murad, S., & Versey, H. S. (2021). Barriers to leisure-time social participation and community integration among Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Leisure Studies, 40(3), 378-391.

Phillimore, J. (2024). From mere life to a good life: Shifting refugee integration policy from outcomes to capabilities. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 43(4), 387-409.

Spaaij, R., Magee, J., Jeanes, R., Penney, D., & O’Connor, J. (2023). Informal sport and (non) belonging among Hazara migrants in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49(17), 4352-4371.

van der Klashorst, E. (2025). For the community, by the community: refugee and migrant empowerment through co-designed leisure programmes. Annals of Leisure Research, 28(1), 28-38.