Dumazedier, the serious leisure perspective, and leisure in Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACTJoffre Dumazedier's work has, since the mid-1970s, captured the attention of many of Brazil's students and researchers. His work is examined with reference to the scope of the serious leisure perspective (SLP). Thus, after considering Dumazedier's ideas as they bear on the SLP, the Perspective itself is first presented and then examined for its usefulness in understanding Brazilian leisure. The methodological bases of the two approaches are contrasted. Dumazedier underscored the importance of the leisure activity and its central role in generating satisfaction or fulfilment. A review of the SLP-related Brazilian literature follows. Dumazedier failed to build a research programme on the activity-satisfaction link. By contrast, the SLP given its definition of leisure and its basic conceptual structure of the leisure activity and its accompanying leisure experience (found in the core activity), has been expanded at the very base line of leisure: what people actually do in their free time. The principal advantage of the SLP over other theoretic stances taken over the years towards leisure is its unique status as an “internal” theory. No other general theory of leisure has emerged inductively from purely leisure research.