Bittersweet Journeys: Meanings of Leisure in the Institution-based Caregiving Context

Abstract

Research on leisure and caregiving has focused almost exclusively on caregivers providing care in the community. Guided by a symbolic interactionist approach and the conceptual framework of the caregiving career, the purpose of this study was to examine the meaning of leisure in the institution-based caregiving context. How family members define their roles and how those role definitions then influence the meaning of leisure was explored within a naturalistic, grounded theory approach using active interviews and personal logs as the data collection strategies. Five alternative caregiving role manifestations were identified and they very much affected the way that leisure was perceived in this context. The meanings of leisure—as constriction, as moments, and as reclamation—changed and evolved as the caregiving career did. The changeability and contradictions inherent in the meanings of leisure over the careers of caregivers are central concepts in an emerging grounded theory concluding the paper.