On what goes unnoticed: Critical dialogues across leisure and (forced) migration studies.

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relevance of critical interdisciplinary dialogues to (re)consider what leisure is, means, and does across global trajectories of displacement and forced migration. It firstly discusses how critical forced migration perspectives that problematised linear “immigration, integration and citizenship” pathways through the lenses of coloniality and racial capitalism can meaningfully dialogue with critical debates in leisure studies with and beyond a forced migration focus. Relatedly, the chapter contends that critical leisure perspectives can address “what goes unnoticed” in established framings of forced migration by shedding light on the (in)visible struggles to counter refugees’ dehumanisation-by-policy that often takes place through grassroots leisure domains. Drawing on the author's research, the discussion addresses how these interdisciplinary dialogues provide unique perspectives to (re)consider the relationship between leisure, time, and the “publicness” of space that unfold within and beside the confines of state-sanctioned and humanitarian responses to asylum.