Socioeconomic and racial-ethnic inequities in access to recreation settings are widely considered environmental justice (EJ) issues. Researchers in leisure, geography, urban planning, and other disciplines have published important theoretical contributions on EJ related to recreation and parks, but such contributions have not been examined conjointly to identify their broader implications. In this article, we use an integrated definition of EJ that includes distributional, procedural, and interactional justice to connect previous theoretical perspectives on EJ about recreation and parks. First, we present an ecological model of recreation that recognizes EJ. We use the ecological model to systematically analyze the policy, physical, social, and perceived environmental factors and the individual factors that impact marginalized people’s recreation participation. Second, we connect the EJ model to theory-relevant literature about recreation and parks. Third, we present future research areas on EJ for recreation and parks with key implications for advancing justice through policy change.

This essay defines the visual approach through a review of leisure-related literature and draws insights from scholars across the social sciences. Visual leisure is the collection of several approaches to research that recognizes the relevance of vision to ways we make sense of leisure in our lives. It is not about more data or incremental advancement, but on providing a different kind of data that repositions research questions in ways that verbal or numeric information are not able to do. Visual leisure has tremendous potential to democratize research through an expanded accessibility of data, an enhanced transparency of argument, and an empowerment of lay people in research-based policy and planning processes. Problems with both visual literacy and representation of leisure contexts are developed as central motivations for producing this special issue.