Landscapes of Leisure: Contesting Class in Urban Delhi

Public leisure spaces, such as community parks, are vital venues for everyday recreational activities and social interactions among urban dwellers. However, the role of leisure space in shaping urban social life—and its entanglement with class relations—remains underexplored in studies of urban India. This paper investigates the everyday use of a community park in Delhi by middle- and lower-class residents, examining how leisure practices reflect and shape class relations in urban India. It uses Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital, and habitus to highlight that leisure practices in the community park both reflect and reinforce class-based symbolic boundaries in urban Delhi. These boundaries emerge from differentiated usage patterns and temporal rhythms of park engagement, shaped by class-specific routines, spatial claims, and cultural norms. Rather than being inclusive public spaces, urban parks become contested terrains where subtle negotiations of class, belonging, and exclusion shape everyday leisure practices.