Leisure as not work: a (far too) common definition in theory and research on free-time activities

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn Leisure's Legacy Stebbins [2017. Leisure’s legacy: Challenging the common sense view of free time. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.] explored the nature of the common-sense definition, comparing it with what leisure studies has learned since its inception around 1970. A different tack is taken in the present article, doing so by looking into how common sense has affected thought and research in the social sciences as well as that in professional, administrative and governmental work. The common-sense or popular definition of leisure is “leisure as not work, leisure as fun.” Attention in this article will be limited to the ways that leisure is defined in philosophy and those social sciences that have a theoretic interest in free time. The latter set includes economics, political science, psychology, sociology, geography, and history. A section follows in which the consequences of the leisure-as-not-work image are examined in contemporary higher education, leisure provision, and governmental policy. In conclusion, leisure studies scholars must become proactive and insist wherever called for on correcting the commons-sense view of leisure. The hint that such action is needed should be evident when the conversation or the text leans heaviest on work, with leisure seen as residual and unspecified, as not work.