Extending extended leisure experiences: a practice-theoretical contribution

Extended Leisure Experiences (ELE) show that leisure exceeds discrete events, yet the framework remains anchored in an event-centric logic that treats ‘extensions’ as after-effects of a primary activity. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate ELE’s event-centrism through a practice-theoretical alternative grounded in Schatzki’s site ontology. I argue that, in some leisure practices, spatiotemporal dispersion is part of the practice’s internal organization: ex-situ projects, knowledge, and material arrangements can function as conditions of possibility for what occurs in situ. An illustrative case of meal practices among long-distance mountain hikers (N = 12) on Sweden’s Kungsleden trail shows how provisioning, resupply knowledge, depot logistics, and temporal routines prefigure what can be cooked, when breaks occur, and how routes are paced. Reframing these processes as elements of the practice’s activity timespace re-specifies ‘extension’ as practice-internal organization. The paper concludes with implications for theorizing leisure beyond event-centric units of analysis.