This book brings together chapters that address questions of leisure, activism and the animation of urban environments. The authors share research that explores the meaning and making of activist practices, events of dissent, and the arts in everyday life.

Chapters were originally published as special issue of Leisure Studies.

Ian R. Lamond is Senior Lecturer in Event Studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Ian's primary research interests are in events of dissent, leisure activism, and creative forms of protest, though he has also worked in the fields of fandom studies, death studies, and political communication. His most recent book, Death and Events: International Perspectives on Events that Mark the End of Life (Routledge, 2022) considers the intersection between event studies and death studies, and he was a guest editor, with Karl Spracklen, of a recent issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies (2020).

Brett Lashua is Lecturer in Sociology of the Media and Education at University College London, UK. Brett's interdisciplinary research spans cultural sociology, youth leisure, popular culture, and media studies, underpinned by interests in cultural histories and cultural geographies.

Chelsea Reid is Part-Time Lecturer in the Leeds School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University, UK, who currently teaches across postgraduate music courses in skills development and research. Chelsea has previously taught in the broad areas of media and journalism at an undergraduate level. Her research interests include political communication, mediatisation, and the portrayal of North Korea within Western media.

Introduction: leisure, activism, and the animation of the urban environment 1. A people's history of leisure studies: where the white nationalists are 2. The right to exist: homelessness and the paradox of leisure 3. Skateboarding, gentle activism, and the animation of public space: CITE - A Celebration of Skateboard Arts and Culture at The Bentway 4. The transgressive festival imagination and the idealisation of reversal 5. Event bidding and new media activism 6. Experiences of urban cycling: emotional geographies of people and place 7. Leisure activism and engaged ethnography: heterogeneous voices and the urban palimpsest 8. Young activists in political squats. Mixing engagement and leisure 9. The emerging civil society. Governing through leisure activism in Milan Afterword - pause and breathe: a point of arrival and departure