The Leisure of Grey Spaces, Urban Play and the Chromatic Turn

Introduction: the leisure of grey spaces, urban play and the chromatic turn

Paul O’Connor, Indigo Willing, Benjamin Duester and Sander Hölsgens

1. ‘It’s a far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts. Isn’t it?’ the changing space of informal youth football in the UK

Stephen Crossley, Gijs Van Campenhout and Luke Billingham

2. Children’s play in grey spaces: ludic geographies and the chromatic turn

Alison Stenning

3. Dystopian leisure? A post-qualitative inquiry on the polluted and (un)safe leisure spaces of Roma children

Safter Elmas and Selçuk Açıkgöz

4. “Grey is all that is depressing and dull”: the chromatic landscapes of rooftop exploration in St Petersburg and the “grey spaces” of leisure in the Capitalocene

Abigail Karas

5. Riding artificial waves: the hybridisation of surfing in urban spaces

Jinsu Byun and Kyu Ha Choi

6. ‘Everybody’s East Lake’: polluted leisure and BMX in grey spaces

Yiyin Ding, Wu Zhou and Zuorong Cheng

7. Dancing on the asphalt: extending the bodies and materialities of chromatic leisure in Hong Kong

Caterina Villani, Ines Ziyou Yin and Kin Wai Michael Siu

8. The grey forms of knowledge. Border scraps, secrecy and the reproduction of skateboarding in Tijuana (Mexico)

Andrea Buchetti

9. The ‘dark’ dimensions of grey space in freestyle skateboarding

Bryce Noe

10. City of courts: excavating the future in West Los Angeles

Christopher Giamarino

11. Skateparks, pollution, and decolonisation

Brian Glenney and Peter DuBois

12. Skateboarding’s bruising affect: From grey spaces to blue dots

Sander Hölsgens

13. Reading the grey zones

Daniel Johnston

Afterword: sense making within the grey spaces of a socially informed, research-practice

Tom Critchley

Biography

Paul O’Connor is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Exeter’s Department of Sociology, Philosophy, and Anthropology (SPSPA). His research explores the sociology of skateboarding, Hong Kong studies, religion, pilgrimage, and cultural hybridity. He is the author of Islam in Hong Kong: Muslims and Everyday Life in China’s World City (2012) and Skateboarding and Religion (2019).

Indigo Willing is the co-author of Skateboarding, Power and Change (2023), written with Anthony Pappalardo and featuring art by Adam Abada. She serves as the co-chair of the International Advisory Board for Skateistan and is the co-founder of several award-winning skate initiatives. Indigo holds Fellowships with the Winston Churchill Trust, the University of Sydney, and the Queensland State Library, Australia.

Benjamin Duester is a Research Fellow in Musicology at Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany. He is a co-founder of the SSHRED (Skating, Sustainability, Health Research and Environmental Design) research network, which focuses on the creative and circular use of waste in art and urban practices. Benjamin is the author of Tomorrow on Cassette: Tape Jams in the New Media Age (2025).

Sander Hölsgens is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the co-director of Pushing Boarders, an international platform and conference that examines the social impact of skateboarding worldwide. His writing on skateboarding has been featured in Skateism, Vice, and Jenkem. Sander is the author of Skateboarding in Seoul: A Sensory Ethnography and Skateboarding and the Senses: Skills, Surfaces, and Spaces (2024; co-authored with Brian Glenney).