Visual research methods have been gaining attention among leisure studies scholars in recent years. As a form of freehand drawing, this paper mobilizes rich picture building (RPB) for future serious leisure studies, and particularly those concerned with devotee work. Employed during focus groups to encourage discussion using pictorial representations of complex social issues, this paper demonstrates the value of RPB for generating new insights into social situations. Through an example of serious leisure via devotee work, this paper presents RPB as a means to support participant discussions since humans are thought to express themselves more easily through pictures than words. Considering serious leisure is inherently social and rooted in human activity, RPB is an innovative approach that can enhance focus group research and triangulate qualitative data across verbal, textual and pictorial data. Through RPB, this paper demonstrates how simplistic pictorial representations of ideas or topics can enhance verbal information collected in traditional focus groups and/or interviews and deepen future serious leisure research.
Wyatt, Brianna Leask, AnnaBarron, Paul
Oxford Brookes Business School
Year of publication: 2025Date of RADAR deposit: 2025-02-07