A society that has leisure more and more as a basic need. The evolution of leisure seen by the Portuguese perspective.

Luís Ávila Silveira,Norberto Santos

doi:10.14195/0871-1623_40_2

Abstract

Leisure is currently seen as a social value of reference. Perceived and valued as a way of rest, but simultaneously of fun, development and personal formation, leisure affects a significant part of our free time and our free will. In this article, particular attention is given to the explication and the integration of the concepts of working time, free time and leisure time. It is valued the interpretation given to leisure and the consecutive changes that brought us to the current understanding of leisure practices. Various perspectives of socioeconomic interpretation of leisure valuation, from the civilization of leisure to the societies of free time, consumption, spectacle, fun, postmodern and hypermodern, are discussed. In view of the enormous diversity of interpretations, a synthesis work is carried out on the meanings of the relations between the socioeconomic and the leisure elements.

Highlights

The economics of leisure and tourism presently occupy a significant part of the global capitalist economic context
Opportunities resulting from the growth of the leisure economy are evident and mainly sustainable
Lefévbre (1968, cited by Gama, 2008b) affirms that the evolution of the organization of industrial work has led to the valuation of free time and leisure time

Summary

Introduction

The economics of leisure and tourism presently occupy a significant part of the global capitalist economic context. We recover the guidance of Dumazedier (1962) when affirming the social value of leisure and the reflection of a social economy of free time and leisure This last factor is associated with the capacity to integrate increasingly complex and diverse processes of development and formation in leisure time, capable of generating desires that, in the western societies (personal quality of life), are transformed into basic necessities. This path of leisure heads us to the perspective of Ascher (2005), who states that eclectic readers manufacture for themselves their theoretical assemblages; in the same way that each person builds a unique diet from an increasingly varied register; that the spectators in the television zapping sessions organize an evening that is only theirs; and that individuals become more and more the disc jockeys of their own existence. This path of leisure heads us to the perspective of Ascher (2005), who states that eclectic readers manufacture for themselves their theoretical assemblages; in the same way that each person builds a unique diet from an increasingly varied register; that the spectators in the television zapping sessions organize an evening that is only theirs; and that individuals become more and more the disc jockeys of their own existence. (p. 18)

A society that has leisure more and more as a basic need

Findings

Conclusion