Drown-proofing New Zealand: The Learn-to-Swim and Prevent Drowning Campaigns, 1936-1956

<p>This thesis examines the development of recreational amateur swimming in New Zealand between 1936 and 1956. During this period, swimming ability and drowning prevention became issues of national importance and extensive measures were introduced to encourage the expansion of amateur swimming culture. The growth of interest in swimming was partly a response to the perception that drowning deaths were too common. This thesis discusses the trends and characteristics of deaths by drowning. The extension of swimming was also largely thanks to the efforts of the Labour Government, elected in 1935, which instituted a new and active approach to enabling leisure. In 1936, just months after being elected, Labour made its first move towards extending New Zealanders’ opportunities for aquatic recreation by offering greater support to voluntary swimming and lifesaving associations. In 1938, under the newly enacted Physical Welfare and Recreation Act, the Government launched the Learn-to-Swim campaign, followed by the Prevent Drowning campaign in 1949. These campaigns helped to establish ‘proper’ swimming as a valuable part of modern life, an increasingly popular leisure pursuit, and an expected skill, as well as advocating the necessity of ‘water wisdom’. By 1956, the perceived need for government intervention into leisure had diminished and swimming and drowning prevention were once again viewed as private matters, the concern of the individual and not of the state. Consequently, the Government (now that of the National administration) withdrew its support from the campaigns. However, swimming was firmly established as an enjoyable, valuable, and important recreational pursuit. Thus, the Water Safety campaign was launched by voluntary swimming and lifesaving organisations to take the place of the Learn-to-Swim and Prevent Drowning campaigns. This thesis argues that the 1936-1956 period was one of significant growth in recreational swimming and the state was an important and active agent in this process of modernising New Zealand’s swimming culture.</p>

Drown-proofing New Zealand: The Learn-to-Swim and Prevent Drowning Campaigns, 1936-1956

<p>This thesis examines the development of recreational amateur swimming in New Zealand between 1936 and 1956. During this period, swimming ability and drowning prevention became issues of national importance and extensive measures were introduced to encourage the expansion of amateur swimming culture. The growth of interest in swimming was partly a response to the perception that drowning deaths were too common. This thesis discusses the trends and characteristics of deaths by drowning. The extension of swimming was also largely thanks to the efforts of the Labour Government, elected in 1935, which instituted a new and active approach to enabling leisure. In 1936, just months after being elected, Labour made its first move towards extending New Zealanders’ opportunities for aquatic recreation by offering greater support to voluntary swimming and lifesaving associations. In 1938, under the newly enacted Physical Welfare and Recreation Act, the Government launched the Learn-to-Swim campaign, followed by the Prevent Drowning campaign in 1949. These campaigns helped to establish ‘proper’ swimming as a valuable part of modern life, an increasingly popular leisure pursuit, and an expected skill, as well as advocating the necessity of ‘water wisdom’. By 1956, the perceived need for government intervention into leisure had diminished and swimming and drowning prevention were once again viewed as private matters, the concern of the individual and not of the state. Consequently, the Government (now that of the National administration) withdrew its support from the campaigns. However, swimming was firmly established as an enjoyable, valuable, and important recreational pursuit. Thus, the Water Safety campaign was launched by voluntary swimming and lifesaving organisations to take the place of the Learn-to-Swim and Prevent Drowning campaigns. This thesis argues that the 1936-1956 period was one of significant growth in recreational swimming and the state was an important and active agent in this process of modernising New Zealand’s swimming culture.</p>

Exploring adversity and the potential for growth among Iron[wo]man competitors

The Ironman triathlon is one of the most famous endurance races in the world. Consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run, it requires significant physical and mental fitness training (Atkinson, 2008) as well as substantial investments in equipment, time, and emotional energy. As opposed to more casual leisure pursuits, the Ironman triathlon can be considered a serious leisure pursuit (Stebbins, 1982). Like other serious athletic leisure pursuits, participation in triathlon can facilitate personal growth experiences, especially through overcoming sport-related adversity (e.g., Atkinson, 2008; Connaughton et al., 2010; Galli & Reel, 2012). In fact, researchers have reported self-discovery, empowerment, agency, and mental toughness as potential benefits of sport-related growth through adversity (Atkinson, 2008; Cronan & Scott, 2008; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Granskog, 1992, 2003; Howells & Fletcher, 2015; Howells et al., 2017; Sarkar et al., 2015).

Spatially Illustrating Leisure Agriculture: Empirical Evidence from Picking Orchards in China

In the context of rural revitalization strategies and humans’ increasing leisure pursuit, leisure agriculture starts to act as a new engine of rural economic growth and industrial upgradation. Unraveling the agri-leisure developmental regularity from a spatial perspective facilitates urban-rural integration and poverty alleviation in rural regions. Given the lack of spatially analyzing agri-leisure (e.g., sightseeing picking orchards) especially at the macro-spatial scale (e.g., the national scale), this study aims to explore the spatiality of leisure agriculture and its fundamental driving mechanisms based on geo-visual (spatially visualizing) analytical tools looking at 20,778 picking orchards in China. Results show that: (1) Picking orchards are distributed in the form of clusters with striking disparity at multiple spatial scales; (2) Five spatial agglomerations are found involving the regions around Beijing and Tianjin, Shandong hinterland, Henan hinterland, the core district of the Yangtze Delta, and the core district of the Pearl River Delta; (3) The driving mechanisms are revealed, and the spatial pattern of picking orchards is found to be largely influenced by morphology, distance to central cities, traffic conditions, economic level, and tourism resources. This study is conducive to optimizing the spatial planning of rural eco-tourism towards sustainable agro-development.

Developing a novel psychographic-behavioral qualitative mapping method for exergames

Location-based augmented reality games, used in several smartphone devices, have the potential to improve health outcomes by transforming gaming from a sedentary leisure pursuit to an active leisure pursuit thus having positive physical, psychological and social implications. We consider two games, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Pokémon GO, by qualitatively mapping both psychographic and behavioral data to profile groups of players to fully understand how we can better design location-based augmented reality exergames to improve exercise and health. Data was collected through an online open-ended, text-box survey (proforma) hosted on Qualtrics, with participants reached via virtual snowballing. The proforma was posted on four subreddit forums dedicated to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Pokémon GO for two weeks, and 1052 participants responded. Our study aligns with a deductive category application, with all highlighted excerpts coded using a predetermined coding scheme. Overall, three themes were identified: 1) Player Loyalty, 2) Player Involvement and 3) Player Constraints. We conclude that psychographic constraints experienced can negatively influence player preference and behavior. However, psychographic enablers such as player involvement with the franchise and player loyalty toward the brand can act to sustain continued gameplay across different player types and should not be underestimated as a powerful influence in decision-making, choice behavior, and behavior change (to improve exercise and health).

Online matters: Future visions of digital making and materiality in hobby crafting

Over the past twenty years, hobby crafting has experienced a revival of interest, as people have started to seek new ways to engage with crafts as creative leisure in an increasingly digital world. Along the way, emerging, digital technologies have provided new tools and ways to engage in hobby crafting. Indeed, today’s hobby crafts are frequently concerned with material mediated via the internet and accomplished with the aid of software, which also affects our understanding of maker identities in online communities. This article argues that digitalization has not only revolutionized hobbyist craft making with new tools and technologies, but has also paved new ways for practising creative skills, which has had a significant impact on makers’ engagements with craft materials, objects and communities of practices. This is demonstrated through netnographic explorations on Facebook’s leisure craft community where digital material practices are increasingly prevalent in hobbyists’ everyday life. As a conclusion, the article speculates on visions of the future of hobby crafts and its relevance as a leisure pursuit.

Exploring Design Factors in Designing Horticultural Garments for Older Adults

Gardening is a common leisure pursuit for many older individuals, and previous research found that gardening activities provide numerous health benefits. Many hazardous situations can occur when gardening, and experts have suggested that older gardeners wear protective gardening garments when gardening. However, there is a lack of research about the important features that must be considered for gardening garments, particularly for older individuals. Thus, this study investigated important design factors for developing gardening garments for older adults, including their design preferences for such garments. This study focused on the population who were born before the year 1960, as this age cohort has begun retiring and shows significant buying power. In-depth interviews and surveys were conducted to achieve the research purpose. The findings from this study will offer insights for designers who seek to better understand and market to this age cohort by designing relevant garments for their gardening activities.

Intimacy, Zoom Tango and the COVID-19 Pandemic

This is a personal reflection reacting and responding to the COVID-19 global pandemic and the domestication and on-lining of physical leisure pursuit. In Anthony Giddens’ The Transformation of Intimacy, there is the suggestion that the condition of the plastic is one ‘decentred’ and ‘freed from the needs of reproduction’. Giddens was writing generally about sexuality and the physical labour of reproduction, but this suggestion warrants wider exploration, particularly when Giddens concludes his argument with the suggestion that intimacy and democracy are ideally implicated in each other: autonomy of the self and open conditions of association as preconditions for establishing his reflexive project of the self. This personal reflection develops this suggestion by looking at two creative responses to the pandemic lockdown as socially distanced tennis and Zoom tango become tactics for living with the unexpected, for coping with isolation, for retaining and returning to an everyday.

‘The traveller of taste, … the naturalist, and the antiquary’

This chapter traces mountaineering’s evolution from one-off ascents, usually undertaken for a specific utilitarian purpose, into a leisure pursuit participated in by an increasingly large section of society. It examines how the practice of climbing developed out of three cultures that were well established in late eighteenth-century Britain: scientific research, antiquarianism, and picturesque travel. Investigating a wide range of writing from these three cultures (with key texts including Horace Bénédict de Saussure’s Voyages dans les Alpes, Thomas Pennant’s Journey to Snowdon, and Thomas West’s A Guide to the Lakes), the chapter shows how the summit became appreciated for the role it played in these pursuits, as an elevated viewing station, an observatory, a source of scientific specimens, and even as an outdoor laboratory.