Thomas Fletcher appointed as Managing Editor of Leisure Studies

My association with leisure studies began in 2009 when I attended my first Leisure Studies Association (LSA) conference in Liverpool. Leisure Studies is the journal of the LSA. I presented a paper with my PhD supervisor, Professor Karl Spracklen, on rugby league in Kazakhstan. Cool, right? I was absolutely petrified. Joking aside, I think this paper is quite symbolic of the leisure studies community. Karl had tried to reassure me that LSA was not like other academic conferences; that LSA prided itself on being inclusive and welcoming, rather than stuffy and intimidating. He was right.

The reaction to the paper was warm and yet reassuringly critical. I have presented at every LSA conference since. In 2010 I joined the Executive Committee of the LSA as its Student Representative. I became Secretary in 2013 and was honoured to be Chair between 2017-2021. The LSA has been an incredibly important part of my relatively short academic career to date. It is an immense privilege to lead a journal that has been so influential to my own work and development as an academic.

As a Managing Editor I want Leisure Studies to be the go-to journal for the best research in our field. By best, I am referring to level of theoretical sophistication, ambition, and academic impact. I want to see research that pushes boundaries, asks difficult and important questions, and which engages with the most pressing issues facing our society. I want academics to aspire to publish in Leisure Studies.

In the process, I also want to ensure that Leisure Studies remains open. Too many journals, in my view, are so distracted by chasing impact factors, rankings etc., that they have become too one-dimensional in the work they publish. They prioritise often quite mundane work that is expected to pull a large readership and follow-on citations.

I recognise that these metrics are an inherent part of academic publishing and Leisure Studies is not immune from this landscape. However, from experience, Leisure Studies has remained true to its origins – prioritising rich, theoretically informed, often quite niche research – in the face of other pressures. This is a culture I want to maintain.

Moreover, one of the things I have always valued about Leisure Studies and its editorial team has been the commitment to demystifying academic publishing. Part of this mission involves (and will continue to involve) growing Leisure Studies’ early career and postgraduate communities.

As I have reflected on in my own work, and during my time as Chair of the Leisure Studies Association, I recognise that leisure studies is in a state of flux globally. As a field, we are routinely challenged by associated fields, namely sports studies, events and tourism. As an Editorial Board, we have discussed at length how we ensure that ‘leisure’ is at the core of submissions to Leisure Studies.

As an interdisciplinary field, we must continue to grow the visibility of Leisure Studies in aligned fields, such as sociology, cultural studies, geography, education, history etc., where a lot of relevant work on leisure is taking place. We also need to ensure Leisure Studies represents the wealth of leisure research globally.

I’m so excited to contribute to this project.