Rafting Guides: Leisure, work and lifestyle

Abstract

The division between work and leisure has long been a point of significant discussion in a variety of academic disciplines. This paper analyses the relationship between work and leisure for rafting guides, linking these topics with an overarching concept of lifestyle. This paper is based on six weeks of fieldwork conducted in Queenstown, New Zealand, where the researcher had in‐depth contact with 26 rafting guides, following their workdays and leisure activities and using informal conversations and participant observation as methods of data collection. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of how rafting guides combine leisure, work, responsibilities, friendship and hierarchy in an environment where, usually, their inner personality is reflected. While focused on rafting guides, the results of this paper have implications for understanding the complexity of the wider relationship between work, leisure, and individual lifestyle, beyond the classic dichotomy between work and leisure.