The 3L Mantra to live by!

Dr. Payal Arora, a member of The Erasmus Centre of Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC) has received € 135,000 from the EUR fellowship grant scheme for 2012-2014 to study the conceptualizing of leisure spaces in the digital age. For the next two years, the recipient of this grant Dr Arora will be investigating how real and virtual leisure spaces can be comprehensively framed through a historical, transnational and cross-cultural lens. This project has also procured a book contract with the Studies in Science, Technology & Society Series of the Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group. The forthcoming book will be published under the title, "Virtual and Real Leisure Spaces: A Comparative and Cross-Cultural Analysis." In essence, the early 20th century birthed a radical phenomenon across several cultures and nations- the demarcating of certain public space for primarily leisure purposes. From India to the United States, urban parks became a symbol of democracy, openness,...

Theme parks of the most unique kind are springing up everywhere! Leisure is taking a new turn. Recently Kunming, an area of 13,000 acres in southern China’s Yunnan Province is being converted into a Disney land of the little people. Tourists can come by to immerse in the spectacle of dwarfs performing and living at the same time; it’s a veritable live reality show. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/world/asia/04dwarfs.html?em Are these frozen realities that we choose not to see? Will we wake up and feel more inclined to think about disability more deeply or have we made disability exotic here? And even if it has been made exotic, can we argue that perhaps it is still better to be visible than invisible? Or take for instance the efforts of harnessing the ready-made reality of slums in Mumbai, India, as a tourist attraction to educate and entertain. Packaged tours of poverty sold for the common good? Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum covers an area of 530 acres and sweeps you with experience...