19. Leisure and Consumption

Abstract

The two principal aims of this chapter are first to summarize the main theoretic developments linking leisure and consumption, piecemeal as they are. The second aim of the chapter is to examine the leisure experience and then tie it to consumption. The personal conditions in which the consumptive leisure experience of today takes place include health, wealth, marital status, level of education, taste and talent for a given product and accompanying activity, knowledge of the product and the activity, and the like. Numbering among the social conditions are advertising and promotion, historical forces, type of government, local and national culture, gender stereotype, ethnicity, consumer advocacy groups and services, geographic location, and others. The serious leisure perspective (SLP) is a theoretic framework that synthesizes three main forms of leisure, showing, at once, their distinctive features, similarities, and interrelationships. The forms are serious, casual, and project-based leisure. Keywords: consumer society; mass consumption; project-based leisure; serious leisure perspective (SLP); social conditions