Recreation and Leisure Studies

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies.

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Organizational support and management of volunteer coaching pathways for girls in community sport
(University of Waterloo, 2025-11-07) Baxter, Haley
Volunteer coaches play a crucial role in teaching skills, guiding athlete development, and leading community sport programs (Cassidy et al., 2023). However, there is a notable underrepresentation of women and girl volunteer coaches in community sport, necessitating further research into their recruitment and support. Currently, little is known about the experiences of girl youth athletes related to coaching pathways and the support available to enter volunteer coaching roles despite this population representing an important pipeline of future sport coaches (LaVoi & Boucher, 2021). This dissertation explores organizational support as it relates to the management of volunteer coaching pathways for girl ice hockey players in community sport. Guided by an interpretivist approach, this dissertation is presented in an integrated article format, comprised of three manuscripts that collectively contribute to the lack of research on women and girls in volunteer sport coaching roles at the community level (Baxter et al., 2021). This qualitative study draws on data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with nineteen self-identified girl ice hockey players ages 12 to 17 years old and ten leaders of nonprofit community ice hockey organizations located in South-Western Ontario, Canada. Data were collected to maintain the overarching purpose of the dissertation while addressing the separate research objectives of each manuscript. Subsequently, data were analyzed following Braun et al.’s (2021) reflexive thematic analysis techniques and guided by the aims and theoretical assumptions identified in each of the respective manuscripts. Theoretically, this research draws on perceived organizational support (POS) theory (Eisenberger et al., 1986). POS refers to the general belief that organizational members (e.g., employees, volunteers) hold, regarding the extent to which an organization cares about their well-being and values their contributions (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Members with positive assessments of POS tend to have higher rates of retention and commitment to an organization. In addition, the third manuscript (Chapter 4), draws on Ryan and Deci’s (2000) self-determination theory (SDT) to provide an additional analytic lens related to volunteer well-being. SDT suggests that well-being consists of three psychological needs, including the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The purpose of the first manuscript (Chapter 2) was to examine perceived organizational supports for girl volunteer coaches in community sport and identify what support processes are needed to generate pathways and develop girls into sport coaching roles. The findings reveal girls' altruistic coaching intentions, the importance of relatability and communication in coaching pathways, preferences for resource equity, and the availability of coaching pathways. The research highlights girls’ aspiration to give back as future coaches despite limited awareness of coaching certification processes. The purpose of the second manuscript (Chapter 3) was to examine current challenges, strategies, and opportunities amongst club leader’s for the recruitment of girl youth ice hockey coaches in community sport clubs. The findings also reveal the lack of organizational support sport club volunteers felt from provincial and national sport organizations as acknowledged in the challenges they face in relation to the recruitment of girls and women as ice hockey coaches. Challenges include a lack of specific targets and informal strategies related to recruitment of women and girl coaches, club leaders perceived lack of interest in coaching amongst women and girls, and prioritization of elite-level sport by provincial and national sport organizations. Despite these challenges, leaders describe opportunities for engaging girl youth volunteer coaches including through the engagement of alumni networks, encouragement of volunteerism amongst current athletes, and support of the coach certification process for girl coaches. The purpose of the third manuscript (Chapter 4) was to examine how the tenets of well-being as proposed by self-determination theory - autonomy, competence, and relatedness - can enhance our understanding of the organizational supports needed to facilitate girls’ transition from players to volunteer coaches. Findings reveal that girls have positive experiences throughout their playing careers that contribute to their sense of well-being, yet there is limited knowledge of how these experiences can facilitate pathways into coaching despite an expressed interest in pursuing coaching opportunities amongst girls. Together, the three manuscripts that comprise this dissertation offer new insights to help sport governing bodies and clubs consider the importance of club level intervention to promote the recruitment of girl athletes as volunteer coaches who are, according to LaVoi and Boucher (2021), the start of a fruitful “pipeline” of future women and girl coaches. In addition, the use of POS and SDT provides a theoretical understanding of how clubs can create supportive environments to engage girls as volunteer coaches during their playing career and offers an important direction for nonprofit sport organizations seeking to improve capacity, increase the representation of women and girls in coaching and leadership positions, and deliver sustainable, high-quality sport programs in our communities for all participants (Hoye et al., 2019).
Thinking Outside the Dots: A Professional Sport Team’s Influence on Hockey Participation in a Non-Traditional Geographic Location
(University of Waterloo, 2025-09-04) Villanueva, Joseph
This dissertation examines how professional sport teams (PSTs) cultivate legitimacy within non-traditional markets by focusing on a case study of a National Hockey League (NHL) team’s youth programming initiatives in Southern California. To maintain confidentiality, this organization is referred to throughout as the “Team.” Although traditionally associated with colder climates and affluent, predominantly white communities, hockey has experienced rapid growth in warmer and more diverse regions. Drawing on a constructionist epistemology and Gramsci’s (1971) theory of cultural hegemony, the study investigates how legitimacy in sport is constructed, contested, and sustained through community-centered practices and emotional resonance. Through an instrumental case study design (Stake, 1995), the research draws on 20 semi-structured interviews with parents, coaches, school and league administrators, and current and former members of the Team’s Fan Development (FD) department. These interviews are complemented by document review and participant and event observation, yielding a multi-layered understanding of how the Team’s efforts intersect with educational systems, cultural norms, and sport development frameworks. The Social Ecological Model (SEM) (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and Leisure Constraints Theory (Crawford & Godbey, 1987) provide additional analytic lenses to explore structural, relational, and psychological factors influencing youth sport engagement. The findings are presented across three primary themes: Eliminating Barriers, Delivering Value, and Commitment to Community, which each correspond to cognitive, pragmatic, and cultural legitimacy as defined by Suchman (1995). Cognitive legitimacy is achieved through early exposure and school-based outreach that normalize hockey in the eyes of youth and parents. Pragmatic legitimacy arises from the consistent delivery of high-quality programming and responsive partnership-building with community stakeholders. Cultural legitimacy, the most complex and fragile form, is fostered through affective bonds, symbolic rituals, and community ownership, yet remains unevenly distributed across socioeconomic lines. This study introduces a three-pronged framework for empirically identifying cultural legitimacy in youth sport: behavioral (e.g., multi-year participation and coaching transitions), discursive (e.g., language shifts that frame hockey as “our sport”), and affective (e.g., joy and pride at community events). These markers suggest that legitimacy is a matter of cultural embeddedness. By situating sport development in the context of everyday life and community relations, this research contributes to theoretical debates around institutional legitimacy, particularly in youth sport. It advances Green’s (2005) normative model of sport development by showing how legitimacy is culturally negotiated outcome. This dissertation offers actionable implications for PSTs, highlighting the need for long-term, relational investment, inclusive programming design, and a nuanced understanding of community-specific values. In doing so, it positions hockey as a sport to be introduced as well as a cultural practice to be continually co-constructed.
Crisis Response, Recovery and Resilience of Community Events: The Case of Kitchener and COVID-19
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-25) McManus, Kelly
The COVID-19 global health pandemic exacerbated the fragility of festivals and events in communities. In a world where further disruptions to events and communities are inevitable, it is critical to understand what can support the crisis response, recovery and resilience of events, event organizations, and event ecosystems. In contrast to event tourism, this study emphasizes community-focused festivals and events planned for residents for the purposes of placemaking and community development. Drawing on the first-hand experiences of event stakeholders, it describes the evolution of festivals and events throughout the two year crisis response and recovery period. Through a lens of social capital, the study explores interorganizational relationships before, during, and after the pandemic. Event stakeholders with longstanding relationships and stronger organizational capacity were more resilient in the crisis. The scale and shock of the pandemic represented an exogenous pathway of social capital, whereby stakeholders were motivated to support one another in new ways during and emerging from the crisis. The findings inform a multi-dimensional framework of event management practices, event organizations, and event ecosystems. With an emphasis on the leadership role of local government, recommendations are offered for promoting resilience in community event ecosystems. The key contributions of the study are (a) continuing to establish the importance of placemaking festivals and events in post-pandemic communities; (b) adopting a multi-dimensional timeframe and holistic view of events and communities; (c) learning from the lived experiences of event stakeholders; and (d) engaging with social capital theory as a contribution to a theoretically fragmented field.
Toward Decolonial Tourism Education in Ghana: A Critical Ethnography
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-20) Agbo, Victor Mawutor
(English) Tourism education, especially in institutions of higher learning has grown to become an important area in tourism literature since the 1980s (Fidgeon, 2010; Liburd, Hjalager, & Christensen, 2011; Sheldon, Fesenmaier, & Tribe, 2013). This development, especially in the Global South, has been largely due to the growth in the tourism industry, and the consequent need to develop a philosophical and pedagogical understanding into tourism. In Ghana, tourism education has remained deeply embedded in colonial frameworks, consequently influencing both pedagogical approaches and knowledge production. In this critical ethnographic study, I examine the relationship between tourism education and colonization in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management (DHTM) at the University of Cape Coast (UCC). Through this methodological approach, I unpacked how tourism education either reinforces and / or resists colonial knowledge structures while exploring decolonial alternatives that centre Ghanaian and African epistemologies. I drew on epistemic decolonization theories (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Grosfoguel, 2007) to challenge dominant Western and Eurocentric paradigms and to offer alternative possibilities of tourism educational practices that unsettle colonialist thought, organization, and infrastructure of current tourism education, trends, policies, and practices that have existed in the DHTM, UCC. Through in-depth interviews with faculty, students, and staff, as well as participant observations, I found that while some faculty members actively resist colonial dominance by incorporating Ghanaian and African perspectives into their teaching, structural barriers hinder the full decolonization of tourism education in the department. The study therefore highlights the importance of participatory curriculum development, storytelling, and oral histories as legitimate knowledge transmission methods, aligning with broader calls for decolonial pedagogical practices (Mbembe, 2016). Additionally, the study critiques the Eurocentric organization of knowledge in academic libraries and the marginalization of African-authored works. It advocates for a restructured classification system that prioritizes Ghanaian and African scholarship to foster epistemic decolonization. The research suggests that decolonizing tourism education requires more than superficial curriculum changes. Instead, structural transformation of knowledge production, educational infrastructure, and pedagogical approaches are required for any effective decolonial transformation to happen. This dissertation contributes to ongoing discussions on Africanization and decolonization in higher education, urging educators and policymakers to reimagine tourism education in a way that is responsive to local histories, cultures, and aspirations. (Ewe) Tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana, vevietɔ le suku kɔkɔwo me va zu akpa vevi aɖe le tsaɖiɖi ŋuti agbalẽwo me tso ƒe 1980-awo me (Fidgeon, 2010; Liburd, Hjalager, & Christensen, 2011; Sheldon, Fesenmaier, & Tribe, 2013). Ŋgɔyiyi sia, vevietɔ le Xexeame Katã ƒe Anyiehe la, tso tsaɖiɖi ƒe dɔwɔƒewo ƒe dzidziɖedzi gbɔ koŋ, kple alesi wòhiã be woatu xexemenunya kple nufiafia gɔmesese ɖo ɖe tsaɖiɖi me tso esia ta. Le Ghana la, tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana gakpɔtɔ ƒo ke ɖe to ɖe dutanyigbadziɖuɖu ƒe ɖoɖowo me vevie, si wɔe be ekpɔ ŋusẽ ɖe nufiafiamɔnu kple sidzedze wɔwɔ siaa dzi. Le ameƒomeviwo ŋuti numekuku vevi sia me la, medzro ƒomedodo si le tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana kple dutanyigbadzinɔlawo dome le Department si woyana be Hospitality kple Tourism Management (DHTM) le Cape Coast Yunivɛsiti (UCC) me. To mɔnu sia dzi la, meɖe alesi tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana doa ŋusẽ kple / alo tsi tre ɖe dutanyigbadzinɔlawo ƒe sidzedze ƒe ɖoɖowo ŋu esime mele dutanyigbadziɖuɖu ƒe mɔnu bubu siwo le titina na Ghana kple Afrika ƒe sidzedzeŋutinunyawo me dzrom. Me za epistemic decolonization nusɔsrɔwo (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Grosfoguel, 2007) tsɔ tsi tre ɖe Eurocentric paradigms siwo xɔ aƒe ɖe amewo me ŋu eye matsɔ tsaɖiɖi ƒe hehenana nuwɔna bubu siwo ate ŋu adzɔ siwo tɔtɔa dutanyigbadziɖuɖu ƒe susu siwo nɔ anyi le DHTM, UCC me la ana. To gbebiame deto siwo wowɔ kple nufialawo, sukuviwo, kple dɔwɔlawo, kpakple gomekpɔlawo ƒe ŋkuléleɖenuŋu me la, mekpɔe be togbɔ be nufialawo dometɔ aɖewo tsia tre ɖe dutanyigbadziɖuɖu ƒe ŋusẽkpɔɖeamedzi ŋu vevie to Ghanatɔwo kple Afrikatɔwo ƒe nukpɔsusuwo dede woƒe nufiafia me hã la, xɔtuɖoɖo ƒe mɔxenuwo xea mɔ na tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana ƒe dutanyigbadziɖuɖu bliboe ɖeɖeɖa le dɔwɔƒea. Eyata numekukua te gbe ɖe gomekpɔkpɔ le nusɔsrɔ̃ɖoɖowo wɔwɔ, ŋutinya gbɔgblɔ, kple ŋutinya siwo wogblɔ kple nu ƒe vevienyenye dzi abe sidzedze ƒe kakamɔnu siwo le se nu ene, si wɔ ɖeka kple yɔyɔ siwo keke ta wu be woawɔ nufiafiamɔnu siwo me woɖea dutanyigbawo ɖa le (Mbembe, 2016). Tsɔ kpe ɖe eŋu la, numekukua ɖe ɖeklemi sidzedze ƒe ɖoɖowɔwɔ si wotu ɖe Europa dzi le agbalẽdzraɖoƒe siwo me wosrɔ̃a nu le kple agbalẽ siwo Afrikatɔwo ŋlɔ la ɖeɖe ɖe aga. Eʋlia hatsotsowo me toto ƒe ɖoɖo si wogbugbɔ trɔ asi le si tsɔa Ghana kple Afrika ƒe agbalẽnyalagãwo ɖoa nɔƒe gbãtɔ be woatsɔ ado sidzedze ƒe dutanyigbawo ɖeɖeɖa ɖe ŋgɔ. Numekukua ɖee fia be tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana ɖeɖeɖa bia nu geɖe wu nusɔsrɔ̃ɖoɖowo ƒe tɔtrɔ gotagometɔwo ko. Ke boŋ, ehiã be woatrɔ asi le sidzedze wɔwɔ, sukudede ƒe xɔtuɖoɖowo, kple nufiafiamɔnu ŋu le ɖoɖo nu hafi tɔtrɔ ɖesiaɖe si awɔ dɔ nyuie le dutanyigbawo ɖeɖeɖa me nate ŋu adzɔ. Nusɔsrɔ̃ sia kpena ɖe numedzodzro siwo yia edzi le Afrikatɔwo ƒe tɔtrɔ kple dutanyigbawo ɖeɖeɖa ŋu le suku kɔkɔwo me ŋu, eye wòƒoe ɖe nufialawo kple ɖoɖowɔlawo nu be woagbugbɔ akpɔ tsaɖiɖi ŋuti hehenana le susu me le mɔ si awɔ ɖeka kple nutoa me ŋutinyawo, dekɔnuwo, kple didiwo nu.
Resistance is Our Heritage: An Archive of Survival and Efforts to Resist Gentrification in Little Jamaica.
(University of Waterloo, 2025-08-11) Pereira, Marcus Thomas
Rooted in my experience as a community member and organizer, this thesis documents the history and resistance of Little Jamaica in Toronto as it continues to face the impacts of gentrification and displacement. Using Black archival practice as my methodology, I draw from oral histories, protest materials, community reports, and digital media to center the voices and experiences of residents, business owners, and activists. Grounded in the framework of racial capitalism, this research understands gentrification as part of a longer history of displacement, extraction, and state neglect targeting Black communities. It traces the development of Little Jamaica through Caribbean migration and examines how planning interventions—particularly the Metrolinx Light Rail Transit construction—have intensified economic pressure, disrupted local business, and contributed to cultural erasure. By amplifying community narratives and mobilizing knowledge for advocacy, this thesis not only documents the fight to preserve Little Jamaica’s cultural identity, but also contributes to broader discussions on gentrification, displacement, and resistance. It highlights the everyday strategies, care networks, and collective organizing that continue to sustain the neighborhood. Ultimately, it seeks to equip residents with knowledge and tools for organizing while challenging dominant narratives of progress and revitalization. At its core, this work affirms that the fight for Little Jamaica is ongoing—and that resistance has always been part of its story.
Dance/Movement Therapy for Dementia Caregiver Resilience: A Mixed-Methods Study
(University of Waterloo, 2025-07-08) Champagne, Eden
As Canada’s population continues to age, more individuals will be living with neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and caring for loved ones with these conditions. The Government of Canada estimates that in 2022-2023, over 400,000 people were living with diagnosed dementia, and close to 99,000 were newly diagnosed that year (StatsCan, 2025). Most individuals living with dementia are taken care of by a family member (romantic partner/spouse or adult child). However, individuals who step in to take on this role often become burdened and distressed due to the grief associated with the losses their loved one is going through (relational, physical, cognitive) and the compounded strains of caregiving. Once dementia emerges and continues to progress, the negative impact on caregivers’ health and well-being is greater than on other caregiving groups (Kim & Schulz, 2008). Thus, it is imperative to explore how caregiver well-being can be maintained despite the ongoing losses with their loved one. The majority of caregiver support programs which have been developed and evaluated are based on stress-process models, aiming to mitigate impacts of illness-related stress through learning communication skills, coping skills, and information about dementia (Schulz et al., 2020). While some of these programs have shown reductions in caregiver depression, most have minimal effect sizes (Schulz et al., 2020) and focus on reducing dysfunction (e.g., burden), rather than promoting holistic resilience factors (Palacio et al., 2020). Resilience literature suggests that taking a strengths-based approach to caregiver support may offer meaningful pathways to caregiver well-being, by promoting malleable factors such as positive affect, self-efficacy, and ways of coping (Palacio et al., 2020). Despite evidence of how the creative-arts therapies (CATs) such as dance/movement therapy (DMT) can promote positive aspects of well-being such as mood and coping in other populations, they remain underexplored for caregivers in their own right (Irons et al., 2020). CAT programs which have been explored often include the caregiver as a co-facilitator of the activity, alongside their loved one with dementia, and thus they may experience burden rather than respite (Irons et al., 2020). Importantly, proposed therapeutic mechanisms of DMT inherently correspond to resilience factors for caregivers (Champagne, 2024), providing a rationale for how DMT may help caregivers to focus on their own needs and build resources. However, scant if any research has designed or evaluated the benefits of DMT for caregivers. The purpose of this exploratory research was to design, facilitate, and evaluate the impact of a 6-session, theory-driven DMT program on resilience for dementia caregivers and to understand their experiences of this program. The objectives and activities in the DMT sessions were informed by resilience theories and previous work on DMT for resilience in other populations. A pretest-posttest convergent mixed-methods design was used. Outcome measures included caregiving burden, resilience, and psychological flourishing. Weekly quantitative measures of active creativity and DMT therapeutic factors were also distributed to consider therapeutic mechanisms of the program. Qualitative data was captured through post-session journal entries and semi-structured debrief interviews. Online survey data was collected at two time points from 10 dementia caregivers (before and after the DMT program). Repeated-measures t-tests were used to examine the changes in caregiver burden and well-being from before to after the DMT program. Results indicated that caregiver burden was significantly reduced from baseline to follow-up, as expected. However, increases in benefit finding, resilience, and psychological flourishing were not statistically significant. Pearson correlations of key study variables indicated that higher resilience immediately following DMT caused significantly lower caregiver burden at follow-up and was significantly associated with higher resilience at follow-up. Additionally, experiencing more DMT therapeutic factors was negatively associated with burden at follow-up, and positively associated with resilience and psychological flourishing at follow-up, with a medium effect size, but these correlations did not reach statistical significance. Thematic findings from qualitative interviews and post-session journals revealed that the DMT program offered participants experiences of holistic engagement, liberation, and meaningful connection with others, which led to benefits of enhanced coping. Participants described their caregiving experiences as exhausting and overwhelming. They reported feeling constrained and that it was hard to find time for self-care. Participants contrasted their experiences in DMT with preexisting caregiver programs and emphasized how creative movement elicited benefits such as feeling “lighter” and empowered, gaining an attitude of acceptance, and emotional regulation. These findings suggest that DMT programs should continue to be designed and offered on a continual basis for dementia caregivers, for the unique ways in which movement provided a needed “release” and “liberation” which promoted experiences of emotional expression and improved coping. Participants suggested that future iterations of the program should have more sessions, longer sessions to enable more deep processing and debriefing, and more social time. Together, the quantitative and qualitative findings suggest preliminary evidence of the potential for DMT to foster resilience factors and benefit caregiver well-being and coping. Participants in the present study emphasized their own surprise at how useful the modality of DMT was for their needs and urged for more DMT programs to be accessible to them.
When Relations Matter Most: Death and Dying Personifications and Experiences from the Perspectives of Recreation Therapists
(University of Waterloo, 2025-05-01) Delaney, Erin Paige
ABSTRACT Over the past 200 years, death has been heavily medicalized within Global North healthcare settings, no longer positioned as naturally occurring but as a failure of medicine. In modern society, death is hidden between the four walls of our hospitals and care facilities, resulting in healthcare workers developing a closer, more persistent relationship to death than the general public. This phenomenon was emphasized by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing healthcare workers’ overexposure to death. The silencing of death creates barriers to care and emphasizes the need for comprehensive death education and better support for healthcare professionals when experiencing death in their workplaces. Guided by phenomenology and expanding personification theory, this study aims to capture the unique experiences and perspectives of death from a healthcare professional group often overlooked in the literature, recreation therapists, by exploring the following questions: 1) How is death understood and experienced by recreation therapists? 2) How is death personified by practicing recreation therapists? What do these personifications tell us about understandings and experiences of death? 3) How might personifications of death and the experiences of death shared by recreation therapists inform us on what recreation therapists need to support their experiences of death and dying? How might death education benefit recreation therapists? This study recruited nine recreation therapists across Canada to participate in a two-step data collection process. Step one used arts-based research methods to capture participants’ personifications of death utilizing collaging and painting. Step two involved four small group virtual research conversations. The research conversations provided opportunities to share and explore the artistic personifications of death outlined in step one and delve deeply into the experiences of death for recreation therapists. A phenomenological analysis process was used to analyze and interpret both the personifications of death and the transcripts of the research conversations. This project demonstrates the entanglement of beauty and darkness in the experience of death and dying from the perspectives of recreation therapists. The findings highlight the impact of relational approaches in end-of-life care and reveal the need for more support to combat burnout and expand the role of recreation therapists in caring for the dying. This project highlighted the participants’ navigation of the emotional and relational challenges of death in healthcare, with artistic personifications reflecting the tension between solace and finality. There is a shared hope for greater support in environments that lack adequate resources, emphasizing the need for systemic change in end-of-life care. This research integrates recreation therapy into the conversation on death and dying, highlighting the essential role of recreation therapists at the end-of-life. Methodologically, it contributes by combining phenomenology and personification to explore the essence of experience through visual art. The findings offer practical implications for recreation therapists, healthcare organizations, and educators in supporting staff and incorporating recreation therapy centered death education.
Exploring Social Citizenship in the Context of Leisure in Residential Care Settings
(University of Waterloo, 2025-04-29) MacTavish, Erica
Dominant stigmatizing narratives of dementia emphasize tragedy, the loss of self, and portray people living with dementia (PLwD) as ‘unagentic’ and ‘failed’ aging subjects. Due to this stigma and the medicalized structure of long-term care (LTC) settings, recreation and leisure are often focused on therapeutic goals or managing “difficult behaviours,” rather than recognizing residents’ desires and aspirations. A social citizenship framework challenges these deficit-based views by recognizing PLwD as active agents with rights, histories, and competencies, while relational citizenship highlights the role of relationships in shaping agency. Although leisure has the potential to either support or undermine social and relational citizenship, existing research has focused almost exclusively on community-based settings, leaving LTC contexts largely unexplored. This study addresses this gap by using an ethnographic approach to narrative inquiry and narrative citizenship to support PLwD in telling their own stories, an opportunity they are often denied in research due to stigma and assumptions about capacity. More specifically it explored how leisure practices in LTC shape social and relational citizenship for PLwD living in these settings. Through fieldwork in a LTC institution in Southern Ontario, I conducted participant observation of leisure programs and research conversations with both PLwD and recreation staff. Four stories reflect the experiences of PLwD and the staff who support them in this LTC setting: Holding onto Selfhood, The Right to Choose, Beyond Isolation, and Negotiating Freedom and Care. This study provides insights into how LTC environments can be reimagined through a relational model of care that intentionally supports the social and relational citizenship of residents by prioritizing interdependence, shared agency, and reciprocal relationships over individualized, person-centred approaches.
Justice is the Real Medicine: The Tensions & In(tensions) of Radical Thinking in Liberal Institutions Across the Medical Industrial Complex
(University of Waterloo, 2025-04-24) Sivasubramaniam, Arany
This dissertation navigates the tensions that arise when radical, political, approaches intersect with the liberal frameworks of health institutions and organizations. Grounded in the interdisciplinary methodology of research-creation, this study interrogates how systems of care, equity, and justice are negotiated, disrupted, and re-imagined within institutional boundaries. Drawing from critical social theories and concepts, the research utilizes pragmatic methods including the plugging-in technique, critical friend collaborations, radical workshops, emergence, affirmative refusal, and skill-sharing, to mobilize knowledge and foster collective insights. The study reveals how liberal, health spaces such as hospitals and long-term care homes often constrain radical political praxis, requiring actors to navigate a delicate balance between complicity and resistance. Through research-creation, it emphasizes the transformative potential of collaborative, creative, and reflexive practices in making visible the affective and structural forces that sustain complicity to white institutionalization. By employing affirmative refusal and emergence as methodological strategies, this research highlights the generative possibilities of refusing predetermined pathways while remaining attuned to the unforeseen. Moreover, radical workshops served as spaces of collective learning and experimentation, fostering community-based knowledge production and challenging state-sanctioned, institutional norms. This work contributes to scholarship on radical politics, health justice, and research-creation by offering practical and theoretical tools to disrupt and reimagine the boundaries of care and well-being within liberal organizations. Ultimately, it argues for the necessity of holding tension as a productive site for transformation, where institutional critique and creative praxis coalesce to envision more just futures.
The Weight of Leaving: Gender, Identity Shifts, and Health Challenges in the Post-Competition Lives of Women Bodybuilders
(University of Waterloo, 2025-04-15) Matharu, Amarjit
Drawing from my own experience as a bodybuilder in the bikini division, the purpose of this research is to explore the retirement transition for women bodybuilders. More specifically, this study explores how women bodybuilders are influenced by gendered ideologies and how these ideologies affect their transition experience in relation to identity, health, and well-being. There is limited literature exploring bodybuilding retirement, and no literature exploring women’s experiences during this transition. Guided by a sport feminism theoretical orientation, I conducted reflexive dyadic interviews with 15 women who retired, or were thinking of retiring, from bodybuilding. I used narrative inquiry to guide the methodological process and observed online spaces including Instagram and Reddit. I constructed five composite characters to represent the diverse experiences of my participants and to present the findings, I crafted a series of narratives, authored by these characters, while also including my own narration to provide context throughout the series of stories. The narratives are organized into two parts. Part one highlights the impact of retirement on the women’s physical health, mental health, and well-being, while part two reveals the influence of gender ideologies on the retirement experience regarding gendered expectations both inside and outside of the industry. I conclude that gender plays a significant role in the retirement transition as gender ideologies are engrained deeply within the industry and society, leading to a dynamic experience impacting identity, health, and well-being during the transition, unique to women. This research is the first of its kind to address women’s bodybuilding retirement in the academic literature, sheds light on an understudied topic and offers insights that may resonate and validate women who share this experience.
Heartworks: Feminist Encounters with the Gendered Selves of Young Divorcées
(University of Waterloo, 2025-04-14) Valtchanov, Bronwen L.
Compelled by personal connections to women in my life experiencing the gendered complexities of divorce, this study explores how young, divorced women (in their 20s and 30s), without children, were influenced by different gendered ideologies—including femininity, coupledom, and pronatalism—along with other social, cultural, and relational contexts and pressures, all of which can be variously experienced, reproduced, and resisted within leisure. Aligning feminist theory with narrative inquiry, I conducted one-to-one interviews and group interviews with 12 young, divorced women. I represented the findings using Creative Analytic Practice through a variety of literary forms, including monologues, social media posts, and researcher field notes. The findings elucidate women’s experiences within a framework I conceptualize as the Heartworks, which details the heart-work of women’s divorce processes and the feminist research praxis it fosters. Collectively, the findings highlight the challenges women faced as they navigated the “shattering” of their married selves and engaged in “re-creating” distinct post-divorce selves against the sociocultural backdrop of gendered ideologies. This research expands current conceptualizations of identity, grief, transition, and transformation. It also adds complexity to our thinking about women’s relationships as a shifting cultural nexus where leisure contexts both confine and expand notions of femininity and love. As a feminist social justice project, this research exposes the marginalization and stigmatization faced by young, divorced women and shares new understandings of their complex, lived experiences, including possibilities for resisting and re-creating limiting narratives of women’s divorce through counter-narratives of (re)claimed agency, solidarity, and empowerment.
Exploring Tourism Inclusion: Perspectives of Older Adults in St. Jacobs
(University of Waterloo, 2024-10-01) Liang, Jianing; Boluk, Karla
The profit-driven and pro-growth tourism industry, driven by capitalist models, has long exploited resources from communities and caused inequities (Fletcher, 2011; Becken and Kaur, 2022). The COVID-19 pandemic’s interruption of tourism has not only revealed its vulnerability, but also created an opportunity for researchers to reconsider its problematic practices and advocate for a potential shift toward greater sustainability and resilience (Ma et al., 2020; Becken and Kaur, 2022; Bellato et al., 2022). One approach is regenerative tourism, which prioritizes the well-being of destination communities by leveraging tourism resources for regeneration (Pollock, 2019). Acknowledging the unique characteristics of each community, regenerative tourism promotes collaboration among all stakeholders to address diverse community needs inclusively (Becken and Kaur, 2022). Existing literature on regenerative tourism suffers from a notable gap in the limited attention given to the involvement of older adult residents as community stakeholders in tourism. The ways in which tourism can benefit older adult residents remains relatively unexplored (Chang et al., 2022). Therefore, this proposed research seeks to explore the tourism needs and participation of older adult residents in St. Jacobs Village, aiming to promote inclusive stakeholder engagement for a marginalized group. To achieve this, Arts-Based Research methods, focus group, and individual interview were employed to gain insights from older adult participants and facilitate the sharing of their experiences and perspectives on St. Jacobs Village’s active engagement in tourism.
Hospitality in Crisis: Maybe Care is the Answer
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-23) Vacalopoulos, Peggy (Panayiota); Mair, Heather
The hospitality industry is in crisis, and maybe care is the answer. As a 25-year veteran of the hospitality industry, I know firsthand what makes the sector undesirable, what makes it attractive, and what makes it worth saving. In 2019, the Covid pandemic brought the tourism sector to its knees, and hospitality came down with it. At this time, many scholars suggested Covid offered the perfect opportunity for us to rethink how we engage with the restoration and regeneration of the sector. During this time, an emphasis was placed on caring for one another. However, that did not trickle down to best business practices. Consequently, the labour shortage amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic continues today as hospitality organizations struggle to attract and retain a talented workforce. In this narrative inquiry, I explored the lived experiences of six frontline restaurant staff before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic by conducting semi-structured interviews. My findings revealed nothing's changed in the industry, it is still as toxic and undesirable as it ever was. Guided by Critical Theory and a feminist ethic of care lens, I formulated the idea that perhaps care can interrupt the invasive neoliberal individualistic attitudes that have dominated hospitality narratives thus far. By incorporating relational care as the foundation for best business practices hospitality outlets will regain their ability to sustain the workforce that fuels hospitality encounters. Maybe then, we will have an opportunity to ensure decent work and economic growth for all.
Older Adults Experiencing Social Isolation and Loneliness During Covid-19: Resilience Through Leisure
(University of Waterloo, 2024-08-28) Atabakhsh, Victoria; Glover, Troy
The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the role of leisure as a resilience strategy to combat social isolation and loneliness among older adult women who lived alone in Kitchener-Waterloo during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was guided by the following research questions: (1) how did public health restrictions affect older adults during the pandemic; (2) what does resilience mean to older adults and what resilience strategies did they use to stay socially connected during the pandemic; and (3) what role, if any, did leisure play as a resilience strategy in addressing the threats of social isolation and loneliness during COVID-19? The research approach that was taken was a narrative inquiry using semi-structured, one-on-one interviews held over the phone to collect data from participants. Many participants experienced heightened feelings of social isolation and loneliness due to physical distancing measures and government mandates (i.e., stay-at-home orders) (Lee et al., 2020). Older adults, particularly those living alone, were at higher risk of experiencing social isolation and loneliness due to restrictions on gatherings, physical distancing measures, and concerns about their health and safety (CDC, 2020). The closure of community centres and other social venues further limited opportunities for participants to engage in activities and connect with others. Many relied on regular social interactions for companionship, emotional support, and a sense of belonging, all of which were disrupted by the pandemic. This research shows that extraverts and introverts had contrasting experiences during the pandemic due to their differing social needs and preferences. While both extraverts and introverts faced challenges during the pandemic, their experiences were shaped by their distinct social preferences and coping mechanisms. Extraverts struggled with reduced social interaction, while introverts navigated a balance between solitude and the need for connection. Similarly, both unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals navigated unique challenges and considerations throughout the pandemic based on their vaccination status and individual circumstances. Unvaccinated participants expressed experiencing more judgement, shunning, and ostracism than vaccinated participants. Every participant, regardless of extraversion, introversion, or vaccination status, demonstrated resilience. Using technology to stay connected during a time where face-to-face interactions were near impossible, older adult women exercised their resilience to make it through the pandemic. Older adult women demonstrated remarkable resilience during the pandemic by employing various leisure strategies to mitigate social isolation and loneliness. Through findings, 5 dimensions of resilience arose encompassing what resilience meant to participants. The dimensions included acceptance, perseverance, adapation, perspective and, and positivity. Further, three major themes of how leisure was exercised to stay resilient arose, which included using leisure to stay connected, to stay distracted, and to stay active. By engaging in leisure, older adult women not only exercised their resilience and coped with social isolation and loneliness but also demonstrated resilience.
Understanding Consumers’ Intentions to Purchase Technological Innovations in the Context of Sport
(University of Waterloo, 2024-07-05) Selvaratnam, Vinurshan; Snelgrove, Ryan
Researchers have studied innovation adoption in various sport contexts, including digital ticketing, sport team mobile apps, fantasy sports league websites, and smart-connected sports products, to name a few. However, researchers have yet to examine consumers’ acceptance of the Apple Vision Pro. This is primarily because the Apple Vision Pro is a new technology that was just introduced to the public in February 2024. Understanding consumers’ acceptance of the Apple Vision Pro is warranted since anecdotal evidence suggests it can positively impact the fan experience. In this dissertation, I conducted three studies to better understand sport consumers’ acceptance of the Apple Vision Pro by applying and extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a theory widely used to study innovation adoption. For all three studies, online surveys designed through Qualtrics were used to collect data (n=272) from Prolific Academic, an online crowdsourcing platform used for behavioral research. In study 1, I included team identification into the TAM to explain why and how sport consumers accept the Vision Pro. To analyze data, structural equation modeling was used and the findings showed that private evaluation and cognitive awareness, two dimensions of team identification, had an indirect positive effect on purchase intention through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and attitude. As such, I recommend that marketers and technology developers implement strategies highlighting the usefulness and ease of use of technologies such as the Vision Pro. I also recommend targeted marketing strategies that appeal to the emotional and cognitive aspects of team identification, leading to purchase intentions among sports fans. In study 2, I included constructs from innovation diffusion theory into the TAM to better understand consumers’ acceptance of the Apple Vision Pro. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data. The findings showed that compatibility, trialability, and observability positively and indirectly influenced purchase intention through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and attitude. As such, I argue that marketing strategies for the Vision Pro should not only focus on demonstrating its unique features and benefits but also emphasize its compatibility with users' lifestyles, offer new opportunities to try the technology for sports fans, and showcase the benefits accrued by existing users. Finally, in study 3, I included perceived monetary value and financial risk into the TAM to understand sports consumers' acceptance of the Vision Pro. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data. The findings showed that perceived financial risk indirectly influenced purchase intention through attitude. This suggests that while perceived financial risk directly influences consumers' attitudes, these attitudes then significantly shape consumers’ purchase intention of the Apple Vision Pro. As such, I argue that marketers should focus on enhancing the positive aspects of the Vision Pro to promote favorable attitudes among sport consumers. For instance, showcasing the unique features of the Vision Pro and emphasizing its benefits in enhancing the fan experience can enhance positive attitudes and offset the negative impact of perceived financial risks. Theoretically, this dissertation extends the TAM by showing the value of integrating other theories and concepts relevant to the study of innovation adoption. This dissertation also advances understandings of technology acceptance in the context of sport by revealing one of the unique features of sport, namely team identification, and its role in adoption. Therefore, exploring the complex interplay of various factors influencing the adoption of the Apple Vision Pro not only validates existing theories but also provides new insights and perspectives, thus paving the way for further research.
Leisure Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction: Examining the Mediating Roles of Self-Rated Physical Health and Mental Health
(University of Waterloo, 2024-05-30) Azam, Arefin; Potwarka, Luke R.
Researchers have studied leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction in different eras (Brown & Frankel, 1993; Neal et al., 1999; Ragheb & Griffith, 1982). A recent study demonstrated that leisure activities and life satisfaction correlate positively (Kim et al., 2022). However, limited information is available regarding the explanatory mechanisms underlying this connection. Drawing from the bottom-up spillover theory proposed by Andrews & Withey (1976), this research examines two potential explanatory mechanisms, self-rated physical health (SRPH) and self-rated mental health (SRMH), which could help explain the relationship between leisure satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. The current study uses population-level secondary data from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) (n = 113,290). The research suggests three hypotheses: (i) that leisure satisfaction has a positive relationship with life satisfaction; (ii) that self-rated physical health will positively mediate the association of life satisfaction and leisure satisfaction; and (iii) Self-rated mental health will operate as a positive mediator in the relationship between life satisfaction and leisure satisfaction. Measures, such as leisure satisfaction (e.g., “How satisfied are you with your leisure activities?”), life satisfaction (“How satisfied are you with your overall life?”), SRPH and SRMH were obtained from the 2017-2018 CCHS. Results from the regression analysis revealed that leisure satisfaction was a significant predictor of life satisfaction. Self-rated physical and mental health also partially mediated this relationship. This research contributes to the growing knowledge of the intricate interplay between leisure, mental and physical health, and overall life satisfaction. Understanding these relationships has implications for interventions and policies to enhance individuals' well-being by considering the role of leisure activities and their impact on mental and physical health.
The ordinary Niagara Falls
(University of Waterloo, 2024-03-11) Stinson, Michela; Grimwood, Bryan
Tourism is a practice traditionally geared away from the ordinary; by virtue of its opposition from everyday life tourism is an act through which we see and do extraordinary things (Urry, 1992). Over time, tourism scholars have complemented and amended these conceptualizations of tourism as a spectacular practice, bringing in more nuanced understandings of tourism as a part of (and not apart from) ordinary life (Larsen, 2008). These orientations include situating the body in tourism (Veijola & Jokinen, 1994), turning toward the mundane and the proximate (Rantala et al., 2020), and positioning tourism as an ordered and assembled performance (Franklin, 2004; van der Duim, 2007). As Niagara Falls, Ontario remains a place dominated by material and discursive spectacle, I am drawn to considering the power of its “ordinary” aspects (Stewart, 2007) in the overall maintenance of its position in the global tourism landscape. Broadly, this dissertation argues that the construction of tourism at Niagara Falls is, indeed, ordinary, achieved not only thorough the larger representational work of advertising and marketing, but through the individual and collective actions of tourists, researchers, residents, and people living with/in and subsequently worldmaking (Hollinshead et al., 2009) with/in Niagara Falls, Ontario. This dissertation also argues that this ordinary work has extraordinary outcomes, and helps to locate tourism as enrolled in the further production of Canadian nationalism, settler colonialism, ruination, and state-sponsored reconciliation in Niagara Falls, Ontario. These are not new arguments, but they are arguments that I believe have urgency in the wake of accelerating climate crisis, global pandemics, and geopolitical conditions that are converging in the changing practices doing of “ordinary” tourism.
Becoming-with More-than-human Protected Areas
(University of Waterloo, 2023-11-28) Hurst, Chris E.; Grimwood, Bryan
The planet is currently undergoing immense and permanent geological change and environmental decline, a period some scholars have referred to as the Anthropocene. Climate change and environmental events, biodiversity declines, wildfires, flooding, pollution, and pandemics are changing the ways in which we engage with the natural environment – as tourist and recreationist. Protected areas, and Parks in particular, are uniquely placed within this broader context of environmental crises in Canada on account of their dual mandate to both facilitate positive visitor experiences and to conserve the ecology and heritage of a site. Tethered to these mandate positions are anthropocentric separations or distinctions between humans and nature. The first, visitor experience, positions humans as visitors and nature as the backdrop for human recreation and tourism. The second mandate, conserving ecologies and heritage, assumes that humans as managers of these places can intervene in nature for particular outcomes, reinforcing ideas of human superiority over nonhumans and nature. Framed by posthuman philosophical, theoretical, and methodological approaches, the manuscripts, book chapter, and research note comprising this thesis work individually (and in combination) to disrupt, co-opt, challenge, and attend to concepts (i.e., anthropomorphism, affective reverberations, time, and agency) that have largely been subject to anthropocentric inscription and offer productive spaces for experimenting with different kinds of affective-sensory-material attunement practices in protected areas. The specific aims of this project are to contribute to building some of the conceptual foundations necessary for a more-than-human conservation ethic and practice premised on knowing-with, being-with, and researching-with nonhumans in nature-based tourism. With the exception of the research note, each chapter also experiments with more-than-human attunements borne of (re)enchantment (i.e., care as action) with concepts, integrating posthuman relationality and praxis with (re)presentational choices intended to evoke and affect (rather than represent per se). Each article simultaneously engages theory-methodology-(re)presentation as an iterative and entangled practice of being-with more-than-human places. Specifically, this research draws upon the sensory-attunements of walking methodologies, the methodological fluidity of methodologies without methodology, and the evocativeness of nonrepresentational methodologies, as an embodied practice of attending. Situated within more-than-human encounters in three Provincial Parks in Ontario, Canada, this thesis contributes to the growing interdisciplinary scholarship engaging with nonhumans as kin and invites us to care-with more-than-human temporalities, agency, and affectivity for more inclusive, responsive, and response-able tourism futures.
Unbearable Fruits
(University of Waterloo, 2023-09-27) Moran, Robyn; Berbary, Lisbeth
Counter to my bodily instincts, abstract writing demands we make something evident in the interest of time (Loveless, 2019). I’ve been state power, settler colonialism, neighbourhood change and/or gentrification, queer politics, homonationalism, mobilities, and placemaking (or place-taking and place un-making). Accordingly, I have situated at the nexus of political economy (i.e., neoliberalism, rainbow capitalism, racial capitalism) and “the cultural politics of emotion” (i.e., affect theory). I've organized the fruits of this labour in three manuscripts (crucially, supported by a handful of addendums, audio-visual, and arts-based components). Across this work, I argue that although "gentrification" lacks consensus definition or measure, as we move towards a more entangled understanding, identification with neighbourhood change processes like 'gentrification' (e.g., an emerging sense of loss, fear of change, felt exclusion, attuning to power) may produce an uncomfortably self-aware political dissonance, where Canadian settler colonialism is operates quietly through the (re)production of queer space. This tension is well symbolized by the growing tendency to include Indigenous design motifs (e.g., a medicine wheel, purple symbolizing Two Row Wampum) as part of the now commonplace rainbow crosswalk. In our worried clammer for cultural sustainability, memorialization, and/or to save the gaybourhood and gay bar from its post-gay demise, have we ignored the ways queer placemaking may also be place-taking? With that in mind, I guess I am left wondering: Why would someone ever want to read this document? It's grievous stuff. “Unbearable,” insofar as the relief from one anxiety simply affords another, resulting in what Berlant (2022, p. 151) described as “a threat that feels like a threat.” I don’t want to be “here” (Jones et al., 2020, p. 402).
Exploring volunteering experiences of South Asian Indians and their intersections with community identity and daily life in Canada
(University of Waterloo, 2023-09-19) Tewari, Aradhana; Smale, Bryan
There is abundant evidence that volunteering generates both positive and negative impacts on the daily lives of volunteers as well as individuals in the communities they serve (Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Han et al., 2020, p.1732). Volunteering experiences of immigrant communities like South Asian Indians (SAIs) in Canada are not well represented in Western volunteering literature, and this gap is especially concerning in times when there is a worldwide decline in volunteering retention (Stefanick et al., 2020, p.124). To help fill this gap, I interviewed SAIs in Canada to understand what it means to volunteer for them and what constitutes their volunteering experiences. Throughout the research, I became increasingly aware of the importance of a variety of contextual factors that shaped the volunteering experience. Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, I was able to explore the ways in which different contextual factors influenced the volunteering interpretations, motivations, recognition of the SAI community identity, as well as the impact that volunteering created on daily life. The shared conversations with the SAI volunteers revealed four principal themes: (1) volunteering interpretations are different in the native and immigrant country, (2) settlement goals and leisure goals are primary volunteer motives, (3) the SAI community identity emerges when volunteers seek familiarity in the Canadian contexts, and (4) volunteering meanings, motives, and identities interact to have a possible impact on daily life. The findings highlight the interactions between the contexts, volunteers’ priorities, leisure outcomes of volunteering, and culture at the volunteering organization, thereby reinforcing the significance of considering the contextual factors in future research. In addition, the study presents volunteer participants’ suggestions that can support volunteering organizations in their work to improve volunteer welfare and volunteer retention.

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