Abstract
The work-leisure relationship was the pivotal issue from the 1950s–1970s when the study of leisure first became a field of collective academic endeavour in North America and the UK. Since then this relationship has declined in visibility. It is now treated as just one among several sources of social divisions alongside gender, age, ethnicity, and also sexual orientations and (dis)abilities. Currently leisure studies has problems of identity, relevance and representation. This paper argues that the only secure future for the field is to return to work.
Highlights
The work-leisure relationship was the pivotal issue from the 1950s–1970s when the study of leisure first became a field of collective academic endeavour in North America and the UK
‘It seems reasonable to conclude that the work-leisure relationship as it has been understood in leisure studies is no longer fit for purpose
Clear work-leisure relationships had been identified in earlier occupational case studies of employees who often worked among hundreds who spent their entire working lives in the same workplaces, and lived close to where they worked so that work and neighbourhood relationships overlapped
Summary
‘It seems reasonable to conclude that the work-leisure relationship as it has been understood in leisure studies is no longer fit for purpose. Since the title has been used just once (Haworth and Veal 2004) and this most recent book does not resemble its predecessors The decline in leisure studies as a distinctive field of study in Australia and New Zealand is irrefutable. Overall it appears that the current state of leisure studies is that it has become a diverse and disparate field within academia’ The section overviews trends in leisure studies since the 1980s in which the profile of the work-leisure relationship has sunk, and identifies new issues, arising from changes in work, with which leisure studies can engage. The third and final section explains why the work-leisure relationship is the only topic around which the wider leisure studies field can cohere and regain attention throughout academia and beyond
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