Justin Harmon
Biographic Data
| ID | 4013345 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Justin Harmon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Justin |
| FAMILY NAME | Harmon |
| SIGNATURE | HARMON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 66 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 66 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
No Responsibility
After Leisure Studies
The academic field of leisure studies has been in a perilous position for the last few decades with the continued loss of programs and departments across the nation. Many have mused on issues facing the field for decades, including fragmentation, lack of a collective identity, financial and enrollment challenges, and a perceived lack, or loss, of relevance. At a certain point, there will no longer be a “field” of leisure studies, even if a few ot…
The end of the trail
The “Sociological Imagination” and Theorizing in Leisure Studies
No Excuses”
Revisiting anti-leisure and other lead balloons
Leisure scholars spend an awful lot of time considering what leisure is without any consideration to what it is not. This critical commentary reintroduces a long-dormant concept, anti-leisure, to urge scholars in the field to apply it in their investigations to develop a more thorough understanding of leisure in society, specifically what is passed off as leisure when, in reality, those behaviours and activities are nothing of the sort
Class consciousness and the limits of leisure
Under the cover of religion
A music community, 10 years later
The forest is my church
Leisure can be an essential resource in navigating life's hardships, like cancer and other serious illnesses, as well as for addressing one's spiritual needs. Frequently, when people are forced to face traumas and tragedies in their lives, they need to tap into their inner strength, an act that may summon a feeling of a connection to something 'greater,' often understood as spirituality, or the process of meaning making considering one's circumst…
Parting Thoughts XXXV
Constellation Theory
When we refer to “structure,” it is in reference to the ordering of other areas of society (e.g., class structuring politics). Structure, however, cannot be fully understood without consideration given to individuals and groups vital to their maintenance or imposition, or the role of “agency,” as well as the often implicit but governing tapestries draped over communities and society, otherwise known as “culture.” In the last half-century, network…
Using Preliminary Data to Guide a Research Project
This methodological and theoretical note is the cornerstone of empirical research I began this past summer (2023) on bear safety in backcountry wilderness settings. I am using this pilot data to inform the future iterations of the study to learn more about people’s relationships to bears and their knowledge of safe practices while recreating in the presence of bears. This note, written in the early months of 2024, focuses on refining the pilot su…
The Future College Student, Revisited
After the publication of the special issue on “the contemporary college student,” the authors received numerous comments and questions about its concluding piece on “the future college student.” There were three questions we found in need of further attention, which we explore in this manuscript: (1) How will the generational characteristics of the emerging cohort, and those to come, affect the future of higher education? (2) How might educationa…
The absence of leisure and the negation of leisure
There are areas of leisure that remain underexplored in the literature, namely the decisions, behaviours, and outcomes of leisure that are less than positive, if not outright negative. Specifically, we explore in critical fashion the “absence ‘negation of leisure’ in this think-piece. To do so, we apply observational and historical reflections from participation in concert events as a vehicle for conceptual exploration. We hope this critical comm…
Prospering without processing
This critical essay seeks to liberate the concept of ‘therapeutic’ from recreation therapy/therapeutic recreation (RT/TR) for the broader field of leisure studies, as well as to demonstrate that ‘processing’ often happens for individuals in any recreation activity, without the direction of an expert or professional therapist. The two main issues addressed in this essay are what makes a recreation activity ‘therapeutic,’ and whether it is necessar…
Midlife “crisis” or midlife awakening? Leisure as obstacle or opportunity
Parting Thoughts XXVI
Parting Thoughts XXIII
Parting Thoughts XXIII: Life without Worry." Leisure Sciences, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2 Notes1 She died August 26, 2023
Parting Thoughts XXVIII
Introduction to the Special Issue, “The Fraying of Society
Parting Thoughts XXXI
Charisma and Leisure
Theriophobia
This critical essay's purpose is to spark a discussion about the perceptions and behaviours of humans regarding time spent in "bear country." To do this, I will employ three concepts, the first of which is theriophobia, or "fear of the beast," a largely dormant concept in academic literature since the 1970s. The second is the "ecology of fear," or "the total impact of predators on prey populations and communities". The position taken here is that…
Parting Thoughts XIII
Community, family and leisure immersion
This study explores the ambiguous term 'community' and how close groups of people come to form one. By extracting two core elements, often attributed to designations of community, mutual affection and shared appreciation, this study elucidates how fans of the rock band Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons established close bonds referred to as family through their lengthy and passionate involvement in the leisure outlet of a music scene. Due to extensi…
The Temporal Phases of Leisure Experience
While there have been studies whereby the methodology relied on evaluations of pre-, during, and postparticipation experiences, it is far more common that research on leisure does not consider the temporal phases of a leisure experience. Further, many of the studies that have attempted to encompass the multiple temporal phases of experiential leisure involvement have not focused on participants who had established significant leisure careers or l…
Becoming Political
This article explores the intersection of politics and leisure, pointing to the fact that power has always been present in leisure activities, settings, practices, and institutions. In noting some of the past contributions of leisure scholarship, it also highlights a need for increasingly political leisure research, where knowledge production, epistemologies, and methodologies help unpack multiple critical leisures. Using engagements with Foucaul…
Extended Leisure Experiences
Our interest in this research reflection is to introduce what we call extended leisure experiences—activities that leisure participants engage in following the completion of a primary leisure activity. Our approach is largely descriptive and exploratory as we outline some properties of the concept and then flesh them out using observations gleaned from participation in the social worlds of contract bridge and music scenes. An understanding of ext…
Leisure participation, substance abuse disorders, and recovery
The purpose of this paper was to explore the lived experiences of people with substance abuse disorders over the course of their lengthy participation in a music scene. When the use of drugs and alcohol either begins or is enabled in a leisure context and progresses to a state of dependency, the leisure activity often becomes secondary to the use of those substances. As will be displayed, the participants of this study maintained a high level of …
Positive emotions and passionate leisure involvement
Music is commonly linked to moments of remembrance, joy, celebration and bonding. This paper explores how middle-aged participants in a music scene use the various aspects of their involvement to create and store positive emotions cultivated through music appreciation, friendship building and maintenance, and shared moments of ecstasy and catharsis. Due to the prevalence of significant life events and transitions in this age cohort (relationship,…
Turn off to tune in
This think piece reflects on the pervasiveness of smartphones—and the constant connection to information, entertainment, and social connections through the internet—in our lives and the implications for this in leisure. While the benefits of smartphones are well-established, and it seems we are well-served by them, the nuanced, cumulative negative consequences of smartphone use have become apparent. Building from these concerns and employing the …
The forest is my church
Leisure can be an essential resource in navigating life's hardships, like cancer and other serious illnesses, as well as for addressing one's spiritual needs. Frequently, when people are forced to face traumas and tragedies in their lives, they need to tap into their inner strength, an act that may summon a feeling of a connection to something 'greater,' often understood as spirituality, or the process of meaning making considering one's circumst…
Cultivating self-reliance
Using ethnographic methods, the present study explored volunteer participation in an urban farm in Austin, Texas, USA. Researchers spent three years documenting the activities of participants via participant observation and interviewing. Guided by the concept of civil leisure, researchers analyzed voluntary participation in the farm as a form of leisure practice that was oriented towards civic issues. Analysis indicated that participation was und…
Extending the leisure substitutability concept
Leisure commitment has been studied for several decades now, but few attempts have been made to look at how leisurists benefit from participation in one activity when it comes to selecting another, but related, activity. The concept of leisure substitutability has been helpful in understanding what is entailed in switching activities, but does not address an important issue: how one leisure activity can potentially set up or introduce other leisu…
I'm No Criminal, I'm Just Homeless”
This paper examines how homelessness is criminalized in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the ways in which the Homeless Union of Greensboro (HUG) has contested such criminalization. This paper draws on data from a participatory action research study conducted between 2018 and 2020 by a group of researchers from two local universities and members of HUG. Findings from our study suggest that law enforcement officers in Greensboro use a vast array of…
A community five years later
This study is the second installment in an ongoing investigation of a music fan community 5 years after the initial period of data collection ended in 2014. During original collection, 33 fans of the band JJJ [anonymized] participated in semi-structured interviews about their personal histories with music, their journey to find the music/scene of the band, and the friendships they formed with other fans. Now, 5 years later, while some have sustai…
Tuesdays with Worry
Dogs have been called ‘social lubricants’ for their uncanny ability to help people with serious illnesses and trauma find brief moments of catharsis, create meaningful relationships when there are none and connect with healthcare providers and other support team members for those with serious illnesses. In this paper, the therapeutic qualities of human–dog interactions will be demonstrated by focusing on one woman’s terminal cancer diagnosis whil…
Spirituality, Fan Culture, and the Music of Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons
This article presents findings from a qualitative study with passionate fans of the rock and roll band, Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons. The study looked at how fan involvement in the music scene enhanced quality of life through the ability to access a personal sense of spirituality. While the majority of participants (87%) had been raised in religious households, most of those (93%) had intentionally abandoned religious affiliation only to come t…
Connecting to the trail
The concept of “place” has been explored for decades, examining how specific geographic locales impact social meanings and interactions, sentimentality associated with a specific environment, and the construction of identity through prolonged place interaction. While meanings often differ based on individual history and interactions, physical environments are often symbolic; they may come to embody elements of potential, catharsis, restoration, o…
Diminishing returns
There is a dearth of focus on the conditions that cause people to terminate participation in their formerly meaningful leisure activities. What is missing is an understanding of the psychological process that takes place when a leisure activity becomes less meaningful over time, yet participation is not immediately abandoned. What are the reasons people maintain involvement in an activity when it is no longer enjoyable? One explanation is the sun…
Beyond the literal
Using fictional expression, this special issue provokes visions of leisure that are not immediately accessible to empirical analysis, but which nevertheless compel the exercise of our moral imagination. Echoing Pinker's (2012) arguments, we contend that fictional expression opens our imagination to previously inaccessible spaces, and allows our speculative faculties to extend empirical knowledge to situations that lie beyond personal experience a…
The Crossroads
The allure of rock n’ roll is born of mystique and fantasy, and rock helps fans channel their affective needs, making it an accessible forum to build identity and connect with others. Music has also been shown to possess transcendent qualities, though oftentimes these ethereal properties are “dark” in nature, emblematic of the indulgent, deviant, and hedonistic aspects often attributed to rock music. The origin of rock n’ roll can arguably be tra…
Leisure seen differently
Most scholars in academia, and certainly those in the field of leisure studies, consider themselves to be empiricists: what we know is derived from what we see firsthand, whether it be through obse
Gonzo Autoethnography
The present study explores the norms of community that are re/produced in the liminal leisure space of a formerly fan-organized music festival. Guided by the concept of communitas, we examined the manner in which fans attempted to exercise their agency in the construction of the weekend against the structure imposed by the promoters. To do this, we developed a creative analytic practice we call gonzo autoethnography, which draws inspiration from …
The ephemerality of community
On the last night of the Bandito's Run in Virginia City, Montana, the band (Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons) was basically breaking up. Sure, they were going to replace JR on bass, but all the fans knew the music would never quite be the same. For one, the fanbase is so small and tightknit that many fans had become close friends of JR. Not only was he important for his contribution to the music, but he was a part of the ‘community.’ He camped with…
Couples and shared leisure experiences
This paper explored how romantic couples’ involvement in a music scene affected both individual and mutual enjoyment during participation which stimulated the desire for future shared leisure experiences. As all aspects of involvement were seen as largely positive, shared music scene participation served as a vehicle to grow together and strengthen relationships. Through joint participation couples were able to affect their collective well-being …
Class consciousness and the limits of leisure
Theriophobia
This critical essay's purpose is to spark a discussion about the perceptions and behaviours of humans regarding time spent in "bear country." To do this, I will employ three concepts, the first of which is theriophobia, or "fear of the beast," a largely dormant concept in academic literature since the 1970s. The second is the "ecology of fear," or "the total impact of predators on prey populations and communities". The position taken here is that…
One-thousand miles and counting’
While some studies have explored the effectiveness of self-directed participation in online support groups for survivors of cancer after treatment, there is a dearth of focus on participation in nontraditional support groups for extended periods of time, whether the individuals have ongoing treatment, metastatic cancer, or show no evidence of disease. This study is the second instalment of a longitudinal investigation into the benefits of a hikin…
Positive emotions and passionate leisure involvement
Music is commonly linked to moments of remembrance, joy, celebration and bonding. This paper explores how middle-aged participants in a music scene use the various aspects of their involvement to create and store positive emotions cultivated through music appreciation, friendship building and maintenance, and shared moments of ecstasy and catharsis. Due to the prevalence of significant life events and transitions in this age cohort (relationship,…
Couples and shared leisure experiences
This paper explored how romantic couples’ involvement in a music scene affected both individual and mutual enjoyment during participation which stimulated the desire for future shared leisure experiences. As all aspects of involvement were seen as largely positive, shared music scene participation served as a vehicle to grow together and strengthen relationships. Through joint participation couples were able to affect their collective well-being …
Extending the leisure substitutability concept
Leisure commitment has been studied for several decades now, but few attempts have been made to look at how leisurists benefit from participation in one activity when it comes to selecting another, but related, activity. The concept of leisure substitutability has been helpful in understanding what is entailed in switching activities, but does not address an important issue: how one leisure activity can potentially set up or introduce other leisu…
Spirituality, Fan Culture, and the Music of Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons
This article presents findings from a qualitative study with passionate fans of the rock and roll band, Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons. The study looked at how fan involvement in the music scene enhanced quality of life through the ability to access a personal sense of spirituality. While the majority of participants (87%) had been raised in religious households, most of those (93%) had intentionally abandoned religious affiliation only to come t…
Extended Leisure Experiences
Our interest in this research reflection is to introduce what we call extended leisure experiences—activities that leisure participants engage in following the completion of a primary leisure activity. Our approach is largely descriptive and exploratory as we outline some properties of the concept and then flesh them out using observations gleaned from participation in the social worlds of contract bridge and music scenes. An understanding of ext…
Popular Music across the Life Course
Although popular music subcultures among youth have been studied extensively, and recently researchers have examined the continued involvement of these same fans in these subcultures as they age, a life‐course perspective has not been brought to bear on this topic. In this entry, the authors outline the questions that might be addressed by using a life‐course perspective to study music consumption and production. In so doing, the authors distingu…
Community, family and leisure immersion
This study explores the ambiguous term 'community' and how close groups of people come to form one. By extracting two core elements, often attributed to designations of community, mutual affection and shared appreciation, this study elucidates how fans of the rock band Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons established close bonds referred to as family through their lengthy and passionate involvement in the leisure outlet of a music scene. Due to extensi…
A death in the family
This manuscript explores how a tightknit music fan community responds to the suicide of one of its members. During the grieving process the music and music scene of the band Rust Forever are relied on for catharsis and healing, and the memories and legacy of the deceased are kept alive through the community's long-established bonds and commitment to helping one another through hard times. While the power and potential of music has been explored i…
Leisure participation, substance abuse disorders, and recovery
The purpose of this paper was to explore the lived experiences of people with substance abuse disorders over the course of their lengthy participation in a music scene. When the use of drugs and alcohol either begins or is enabled in a leisure context and progresses to a state of dependency, the leisure activity often becomes secondary to the use of those substances. As will be displayed, the participants of this study maintained a high level of …
Building a life note-by-note
Music is an omnipresent component of many people's lives. On an individual level it is used to set moods, mark milestones, and connect to one's personal history. At a collective level music marks the concerns of cultural heritage, national holidays and days of remembrance, and brings people together by serving as a conduit to engage in fellowship, as well as an immediate point of shared interest or experience that helps to form bonds. While popul…
The ephemerality of community
On the last night of the Bandito's Run in Virginia City, Montana, the band (Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons) was basically breaking up. Sure, they were going to replace JR on bass, but all the fans knew the music would never quite be the same. For one, the fanbase is so small and tightknit that many fans had become close friends of JR. Not only was he important for his contribution to the music, but he was a part of the ‘community.’ He camped with…
The Temporal Phases of Leisure Experience
While there have been studies whereby the methodology relied on evaluations of pre-, during, and postparticipation experiences, it is far more common that research on leisure does not consider the temporal phases of a leisure experience. Further, many of the studies that have attempted to encompass the multiple temporal phases of experiential leisure involvement have not focused on participants who had established significant leisure careers or l…
Becoming Political
This article explores the intersection of politics and leisure, pointing to the fact that power has always been present in leisure activities, settings, practices, and institutions. In noting some of the past contributions of leisure scholarship, it also highlights a need for increasingly political leisure research, where knowledge production, epistemologies, and methodologies help unpack multiple critical leisures. Using engagements with Foucaul…
Restorative Rhythms
Thirty people who were either in treatment, or in remission, from cancer and their caregivers participated in a therapeutic drumming clinic called Restorative Rhythms. As music has been proposed as a significant way to reduce stress and stimulate feelings of happiness and empowerment, it is therefore a valuable tool for coping with illnesses like cancer. Because people who are diagnosed with cancer often have trouble expressing their emotions, mu…
Cultivating self-reliance
Using ethnographic methods, the present study explored volunteer participation in an urban farm in Austin, Texas, USA. Researchers spent three years documenting the activities of participants via participant observation and interviewing. Guided by the concept of civil leisure, researchers analyzed voluntary participation in the farm as a form of leisure practice that was oriented towards civic issues. Analysis indicated that participation was und…
Finding fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Casinos serve as the proverbial devil on the shoulder to strengthen the convictions – and addictions – of those who have succumbed to the controlling mechanisms of casino culture, and the tangential addictions that often accompany gambling disorders. Acknowledging that millions of people gamble on a daily basis without negative outcomes, the present project seeks to draw attention to the fact that little scholarly attention is given to ‘leisure i…
Tuesdays with Worry
Dogs have been called ‘social lubricants’ for their uncanny ability to help people with serious illnesses and trauma find brief moments of catharsis, create meaningful relationships when there are none and connect with healthcare providers and other support team members for those with serious illnesses. In this paper, the therapeutic qualities of human–dog interactions will be demonstrated by focusing on one woman’s terminal cancer diagnosis whil…
Leisure seen differently
Most scholars in academia, and certainly those in the field of leisure studies, consider themselves to be empiricists: what we know is derived from what we see firsthand, whether it be through obse
Gonzo Autoethnography
The present study explores the norms of community that are re/produced in the liminal leisure space of a formerly fan-organized music festival. Guided by the concept of communitas, we examined the manner in which fans attempted to exercise their agency in the construction of the weekend against the structure imposed by the promoters. To do this, we developed a creative analytic practice we call gonzo autoethnography, which draws inspiration from …
A community five years later
This study is the second installment in an ongoing investigation of a music fan community 5 years after the initial period of data collection ended in 2014. During original collection, 33 fans of the band JJJ [anonymized] participated in semi-structured interviews about their personal histories with music, their journey to find the music/scene of the band, and the friendships they formed with other fans. Now, 5 years later, while some have sustai…
A Moment in Time
The Future College Student
This special issue focused on the “contemporary college student,” but we would be remiss if we did not at least consider the future college student as well. To do so requires us first to consider t
Contemporary College Students
The stereotypical image of the “college student” is an early 20s white middle-class individual whose parents have higher education and high enough income to pay for four years of said student’s tui
Diminishing returns
There is a dearth of focus on the conditions that cause people to terminate participation in their formerly meaningful leisure activities. What is missing is an understanding of the psychological process that takes place when a leisure activity becomes less meaningful over time, yet participation is not immediately abandoned. What are the reasons people maintain involvement in an activity when it is no longer enjoyable? One explanation is the sun…
Beyond the literal
Using fictional expression, this special issue provokes visions of leisure that are not immediately accessible to empirical analysis, but which nevertheless compel the exercise of our moral imagination. Echoing Pinker's (2012) arguments, we contend that fictional expression opens our imagination to previously inaccessible spaces, and allows our speculative faculties to extend empirical knowledge to situations that lie beyond personal experience a…
Psychology (46 works) · Sociology (45 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management (22 works) · Aesthetics (21 works) · Art (20 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Political science (19 works) · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works)