From the domestic to the public sphere: Collective leisure as a catalyst for feminist agency and women’s well-being in rural Spain Egea Hernández, María Maroto Martos, Juan Carlos Pinos Navarrete, Aida Cejudo García, Eugenio Women’s associations Gender Rurality Social movements Place attachment Geography This research was supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under Grant C-HUM-355-UGR23. Additional funding was provided by the University of Granada, Unit of Excellence “Work, Territory and Competitiveness”, under Grant UCE PP2023-08. The first author was supported by a predoctoral fellowship FPU23/02237 funded by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Government of Spain. In rural areas, limited economic resources for promoting cultural activities often constrain opportunities for leisure and social participation. In Andalusia (Spain), numerous women’s associations were founded in the late 1980s as a response to this scarcity and to the persistence of highly masculinised public spaces. Based on a qualitative fieldwork involving six focus groups, this study examines the role of rural women’s associations as spaces of leisure, rootedness and empowerment. Findings reveal how associational dynamics shape everyday practices that range from recreational and cultural activities to mutual support and social inclusion. By engaging in collective leisure, women transform these spaces into sites of social well-being and feminist agency, enabling the construction of new forms of visibility and citizenship in territories marked by depopulation and social isolation. 2026-03-09T11:25:52Z 2026-03-09T11:25:52Z 2026-03-05 journal article Published version: Egea-Hernández, M., Maroto-Martos, J. C., Pinos-Navarrete, A., & Cejudo-García, E. (2026). From the domestic to the public sphere: collective leisure as a catalyst for feminist agency and women’s well-being in rural Spain. Leisure Studies, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2026.2640580 0261-4367 1466-4496 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/111976 10.1080/02614367.2026.2640580 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Taylor & Francis