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| Highlights
of the 5th WLRA World Congress |
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"Leisure
in a Globalized Society: Inclusion or Exclusion?"
The 5th WLRA World Congress, which
took place at SESC Vila Mariana in São Paulo. Brazil,
was hosted by the Serviço Social do Comércio
(SESC) and included the participation of the Associación
Latinoamericana de Tiempo Libre y Recreación (ALATIR),
and the Brazilian national organization ENAREL. The Congress
was endorsed by UNESCO and was an official event in the
commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations'
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All joined to analyze
and discuss recent trends in leisure with the theme, "Leisure
and Globalization" serving as a focus.
Danilo Santos de Miranda, SESC
Director, then President of ALATIR and Chairman of the
Brazilian Organizing Committee, welcomed some 1000 congress
delegates at the opening ceremony. Dr. Miranda pointed
out the Congress was being held at a moment of significant
economical and social crises. With the employment systems
of the 20th century no longer valid - a time where progress
and mechanical improvements favoured the creation of jobs,
professional diversification and the increase of leisure
time - today we have the threat of exclusion of some social
groups whose quality of life has been improved over the
last fifty years. He said we are talking about a way of
life largely reached through the inclusion of such social
groups in public or private cultural programs and leisure
activities. He reminded the delegates that if we are not
creative and responsible in this period of crises, we
face the risk of diminishing our achievements and, consequently,
lowering the levels of citizenship and social well-being.
But, even more important, we risk holding back the rights
that have not even been reached by many of those groups.
The five-day Congress was large, full and complex. There
were five Plenary Sessions, three Discussion Panels, seven
Keynote Speakers, fourteen Institutional Presentations,
over 250 papers, a number of Poster Presentations, and
12 Workshops. Plenary speakers included Professor
Milton Santos, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
and Human Studies at the University of São Paulo,
Brazil; Robert Kurz, sociologist and
director of Krisis magazine, Germany; Professor
Mike Featherstone, Nottingham Trent University
and editor and founder of Theory, Culture & Society
magazine, England, Professor Saskia Sassen,
Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Columbia,
USA, and Professor Domenico De Masi,
University of Rome, La Sapienza.
Congress delegates were entertained "in a Brazilian
way" throughout the week, including performances
of Brazilian folk and traditional dances and a special
instrumental presentation by Brazilian musician Paulo
Moura, who helped prepare the mood of the participants
throughout the week. Multiple activities were staged in
the varied spaces of SESC Vila Mariana, with the results
of several of the workshops on display the final day of
the Congress.
In the opening Plenary Session, Professor Santos
set the stage for the week by characterizing leisure in
a global society, how its changed, particularly its ties
market economy, its changing relationship to work, the
growing significance of popular culture, and the threat
of exclusion. After a full week's programming, Professor
de Masi delivered the final Congress address:
"The Rising of the Third Millennium: Perspectives
for Work and Free Time." For de Masi, what characterizes
the post-industrial societies is the globalization of
the taste, the cultural androgyny in conceptual references
to daily life. This is the result of a highly advanced
level of technology that because of its homogeneity is
not capable of promoting differentiation among products.
In spite of these new symbolic parameters, those technological
advances have not been able to produce a better exploitation
of the time and a redistribution of the time. We keep
ourselves conditioned by the bad use of the time, still
rigidly dividing time of work and idle time. De Masi affirms
that our challenge is to reflect on those matters in order
to be able to point to new concepts and a new experience
of free time.
A special feature of the Congress was the formulation
of the São Paulo Declaration,
as an expression of the will of the Congress participants
with regard to a significant contemporary issue, namely
leisure access and inclusion in globalized society. Under
the leadership of Paul Jonson, of the
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, delegates
were provided with a draft version in three languages
at the beginning of the Congress and invited to provide
comments and suggestions during the course of the week.
An editorial committee prepared a final version of the
document for presentation at the Closing Ceremony, where
it was approved unanimously by delegates.
Finally, under and agreement between SESC and WLRA, the
Congress Proceedings will be published in English, Portuguese,
and Spanish, and contain the texts of the Plenary, Panel
and Keynote speakers. The project is under the joint editorship
of Francis Lobo, the new Editor-in-Chief
of the WLRA Journal, and Jesus Vazquez
of SESC. |
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