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Events > World Leisure Congresses > Previous Congresses > 5th World Leisure Congress - 19985th World Leisure Congress - 1998
Saulo Paulo, Brazil
January 1, 1998
Highlights of the 5th WLRA World Congress
"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 With the employment systems of the 20th century no longer valid - a time where progress and mechanical improvements favoured the creation of jobs, professional diversification and the increase of leisure time - today we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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