Square Dancing as Serious Leisure: Gender Representation and Public Space Negotiation in Urban China

Abstract

This thesis explores square dancing as a multidimensional cultural practice situated at the intersection of leisure, gender, ageing, and urban spatial politics in contemporary China. While square dancing is commonly depicted in popular media and official discourse as a benign, health-promoting activity for middle-aged and older women, this study contends that it constitutes a more complex and socially embedded form of serious leisure. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the third-tier city of Suyang, the research investigates how square dancing operates as a lived and negotiated practice through which older adults—particularly women—construct identities, claim public space, and navigate the competing demands of domestic responsibilities, bodily ageing, and social visibility.

The study contributes to ongoing debates concerning the politics of ageing and the gendered use of public space. It is informed by Robert Stebbins’ serious leisure framework, Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, and Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of social space. However, the thesis also critically engages with these paradigms to account for the specific cultural and relational dynamics that shape late-life leisure in China. While Stebbins’ typology has been instrumental in legitimising non-work-based pursuits, it has been critiqued for its limited gender analysis and binary opposition between ‘serious’ and ‘casual’ leisure. This study responds to such critiques by demonstrating that seriousness in leisure is not an inherent characteristic but an outcome of relational negotiations, moral rationales, and resource constraints—particularly salient for older women embedded in caregiving networks.

Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative ethnographic approach, employing semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and participant observation, embodying participation as a dancer within three square dancing teams of varying size, structure, and internal hierarchy. The use of ethnography was particularly effective in capturing the affective, corporeal, and tacit dimensions of participation—elements frequently overlooked in conventional square dancing research. By dancing alongside participants, the researcher was able to apprehend the rhythms, repetitions, pleasures, and frictions that structured team dynamics and sustained commitment. Reflexivity and positionality were integral to the fieldwork process. As a young, university-educated male researcher operating in a predominantly older, female space, the ethnographic encounter was shaped by intergenerational and gendered asymmetries that both facilitated rapport and limited access to particular emotional registers and everyday intimacies. Rather than viewing these dynamics as methodological limitations, the study treats them as sources of analytical insight, revealing how age, gender, and embodiment mediate fieldwork relationships and influence the production of ethnographic knowledge.

The empirical chapters provide a detailed account of how square dancing operates as a site of gendered identity formation, care negotiation, and spatial contestation. The findings indicate that many participants approach square dancing not merely as a form of physical exercise or entertainment but as a meaningful life project that affirms personal worth, fosters social connection, and enhances public legitimacy. Dancers invest substantial time, energy, and emotional labour into perfecting performance, curating dresses, and coordinating with teammates and local authorities. For many women, square dancing represents a rare opportunity for self-expression and autonomy in a life stage often characterised by social marginalisation and familial obligation. Yet, such agency is frequently conditional. Women often had to frame their participation in moral terms—such as promoting health, contributing to social harmony, or fulfilling civic duty—in order to secure familial support and social endorsement.

The thesis also examines how gender is performed, reinforced, and occasionally subverted through square dancing. While many teams reproduce conventional femininity through graceful movement, modest attire, and romantic musical selections, others experiment with militaristic choreography or youthful aesthetics that challenge normative expectations surrounding age and gender. These performances may not be overtly political, but they function as everyday acts of negotiated agency that subtly reshape boundaries of visibility, legitimacy, and urban belonging.

In relation to spatial politics, the study underscores that public space is neither neutral nor equally accessible. Rather, it emerges as a site of contested legitimacy, where moral judgements and social anxieties over visibility and propriety are negotiated. Dancers’ use of parks and squares often brought them into conflict with nearby residents, urban authorities, and property developers. These disputes, however, should not be interpreted merely as technical disagreements over noise or space. Instead, they reflect deeper tensions over who is entitled to occupy urban space, under what conditions, and with what bodily practices.

The thesis concludes by offering theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions. Theoretically, it refines the serious leisure framework by embedding it within gendered and relational contexts. Methodologically, it foregrounds the value of embodied and reflexive ethnography in exploring the lives and practices of older populations. Practically, it offers insights for urban planners, cultural policymakers, and community organisations on how to foster more age-inclusive and negotiated uses of public space. In doing so, the thesis advances a more nuanced understanding of leisure not merely as a site of personal fulfilment, but as a terrain through which collective identity, spatial justice, and everyday politics are enacted in rapidly transforming urban environments.