Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
SOCIAL EXCLUSION: CONDITIONING LEISURE
PARTICIPATION
In the previous case study, the constraints on participation derived from fear, concerns for
personal safety and the use of public spaces highlight a relatively new concept which
many social science researchers have begun using to explain societal constraints on
participation—social exclusion. Byrne (1999) traces the emergence of this new phrase in
political terms, which is used to explain how changes in the whole of society affect
particular people and groups. This is indicative of systematic problems in the structure of
society, which determines the lives of certain groups. This has superseded earlier
arguments and explanations of poverty related to an underclass (see Page 1988),
replacing simpler notions of poverty. Poverty has been viewed as an absence of
resources, notably income as a factor conditioning participation in society. Exclusion, in
contrast, is a more dynamic concept which implies that people are shut out (fully or
partially) from the systems in society that allow full integration and participation in
society. In political terms, exclusion may also be seen as denying the rights of individuals
as citizens. In a post-industrial society, theoretical explanations of exclusion are
attributed to the changing nature of work in society, increased insecurity in employment,
a growing service sector and reconstructed welfare state systems to reduce public
expenditure, where ethnic origin may also be a further factor contributing to exclusion
and access to goods and services.
Consequently, social exclusion is a multifaceted process, like poverty, but embodies
exclusion from participation in decision-making that allows access to the means of being
a citizen, employment, and engagement in the social and cultural processes which the
majority of citizens have access to. In geographical terms, such exclusion has been
characterised by its concentration in particular neighbourhoods (e.g. areas of multiple
deprivation). Multiple deprivation has been mapped by geographers to identify the
intersection of poverty and other social conditions (e.g. poverty, unemployment, poor
housing conditions and education, high levels of crime and poor health), thereby creating
a distinct geography of exclusion. One of the most significant contributory factors to the
size and nature of demand is clearly related to socioeconomic contrasts. Social well-being
(see D.M. Smith 1977 for a discussion of the concept of social well-being and welfare
geography) is, according to Rodgers (1993:126), 'a strong influence on both the volume
and structure of leisure demand and on the relative roles of public and commercial
provision in meeting it'. Using the Department of the Environment (DoE) Social
Deprivation Index (for a discussion of deprivation indices, see Townsend 1979; Page
1988), which derives negative indices based on unemployment, overcrowding, single-
parent and pension households, housing quality and ethnic origin, Rodgers (1993) ranked
the districts in the north-west of England on this composite measure of social stress and
also included levels of car ownership. The results were used to identify a range of
geographically based leisure markets which were strong or weak in terms of demand,
particularly in relation to their capacity to pay for recreational activities in a market-
driven local leisure economy. Similarly, patterns of multiple deprivation in London
mapped by ward in 2000 (Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2003) are indicative of the
inner city and other 'sink' areas, often associated with large council housing estates
which concentrate deprivation into distinct areas of deprivation at a micro scale. For
