Doing community: the interactional dynamics of leisure

For over fifty years, scholars have examined how leisure contributes to community, belonging, and social life. Much of this work, however, has focused on the outcomes of leisure participation rather than the interactional processes through which connection emerges and endures. This commentary argues for greater analytical attention on the interactional dynamics of leisure, particularly the patterned encounters through which participants gradually transform co-presence into recognition, familiarity, and shared meaning. Drawing on scholarship related to interaction rituals, public familiarity, communing, and social infrastructure, the commentary reframes leisure as a form of interactional infrastructure that creates the conditions for repeated opportunities for social engagement. Rather than treating community as a static outcome or feeling, this perspective emphasizes how participants actively enact and sustain social life through ongoing leisure practices. In an era marked by widespread concern about social isolation and loneliness, examining these interactional dynamics offers a promising direction for future leisure scholarship.