Obligation as an Aspect of Leisure Experience

Abstract

is a frequently used but lamentably under-conceptualized idea in leisure studies. Its importance there stems from two facts: leisure activities occasionally or frequently have an obligatory side that some participants nonetheless experience as part of leisure, but that other participants experience as offensive, chiefly because it effectively robs the activities of the essential quality of leisure choice. To speak of obligation, then, is to speak not about how people are prevented from entering certain leisure the goal of leisure constraints research, but about how people fail to define a given activity as leisure or redefine it as other than leisure, as an obligation. Accordingly, this paper treats obligation both as a state of mind, an attitude-a person feels obligated-and as a form of behavior-a person must carry out a particular course of action. But even while obligation is substantially mental and behavioral, it roots, too, in the social and cultural world of the obligated actor. Hence, the study of obligation is at once a psychological and sociological enterprise. People are obligated when, even though not coerced, they do or refrain from something because they feel bound in this regard by promise, convention, or circumstances. Obligation is not, however, necessarily unpleasant. For example, the leading lady is obligated to go to the theater during the weekend to perform in an amateur play, but does so with great enthusiasm because of her passion for drama as a leisure activity. By contrast, her obligation to go to work the following Monday morning after the high satisfaction of the leisure weekend comes as a letdown. In fact, she could refuse to honor both obligations, for no one is likely to force her to do so, but such refusal is unlikely, because it would very probably result in some unpleasant costs (e.g., a fine for missing work that day, a rebuke by the director for being absent). Another example might center on people, among them a fair range of professionals, for whom their occupation is as much a passion as acting is for the actress and for whom to work each Monday, however obligatory, is viewed as a good thing. Obligation also thrives beyond work and leisure in a third sphere; it is constituted of what might be called obligations, for want of a better descriptor. I have in mind such diverse requirements in life as eating, grocery shopping, taking a shower, attending religious services, to the dentist, mowing the lawn, driving the children to the cinema, and paying the family bills. These are routine activities. Participation in one-shot or highly unusual events can also be obligative, as in having an operation or getting a divorce. Routine or unusual, these activities must be done, even if some are occasionally pleasant and perhaps sporadically satisfying (e.g., finding a bargain at the grocery store or an insight in the sermon). And however viewed, they are normally seen as neither work nor leisure. Thus personal obligations are of concern to leisure studies only to the extent that they help demarcate this discipline, indicating that leisure is limited, in part, by the demands they occasionally impose. The relationship between obligation and leisure has been examined before. Dumazedier (1967) coined the term to describe activities, which from the point of view of the individual, arise in the first place from leisure, but which represent in differing degrees the character of obligations. He observed that the line separating leisure and obligation is at times unclear and depends largely on a person's attitude toward the activity. Thus, playing with one's children or shopping can be a duty or a delight (Bowlby, 1997, p. 102 distinguishes between doing and going shopping,) . Laverie ( 1998) found that aerobics are considered serious leisure by some participants, while others see them as personal obligation. But semi-leisure sometimes degenerates into anti-leisure. …