Understanding Of Leisure Research Articles

“Meditation is Good for Nothing:” Leisure as a Democratic Practice

Does meditation bring political benefits in the sense of strengthening citizenship or democracy? Taking the Zen phrase “meditation doesn’t work—it’s good for nothing” as my point of departure, and reading Aristotle’s discussion of leisure in relation to citizenship, I argue that meditation can foster significant dimensions of democratic citizenship. This argument focuses particularly on the avowedly anti-instrumental aspect of mindfulness meditation. The connection between meditation and leisure demands a shift in our understanding of leisure, away from relaxation available to the privileged few and toward practices that are open-ended, non-instrumental, and, like democracy and citizenship, due to all. Finally, meditation offers an example of how to appropriate and inhabit excess in ways that support egalitarian citizenship. Meditation needs to be of “no benefit” in order to foster citizenship in these ways.

An understanding of leisure via The Theory of Communicative Action

This study seeks to contribute to the understanding of leisure. For this analysis we will interpret leisure via The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA) of Jurgen Habermas (1987a and 1987b). First, we aim to understand the most important categories of the TCA, especially the concepts of Life World (LW), Money Systems (MS) and Power Systems (PS), and then, we interpret leisure via TCA. In a second step, we seek to strengthen this referential by bringing other interpretations of the object leisure, such as: leisure and work, leisure and postmodern, leisure and pleasure; showing how the Habermasian referential can contribute to the interpretation of contemporary leisure. To conclude, we bring a definition of leisure, based on all the theoretical construction presented in this study. This study is theoretical exploratory, based on understanding of the theories of leisure, the Habermasian reference (TCA) and the understanding of leisure via this reference.

Exploring the relationship between cell phone use and leisure: an empirical analysis and implications for management

With the functionality of an internet-connected computer and an array of creative software, the modern cell phone is designed to entertain. Yet, the potential intersection of cell phone use and leisure has not been well explored. For this study, a random sample of 379 students from a large public US university completed a brief survey measuring cell phone use, perceptions of leisure, and perceptions of the cell phone's role in facilitating leisure. An analysis of variance was used to compare mean responses among low-, medium-, and high-frequency cell phone users. Results showed no difference between the three groups' understanding of leisure. However, significant differences emerged when comparing the three groups' perceptions of the cell phone's role in facilitating leisure. Specifically, high-frequency users appeared more dependent on the cell phone for experiencing leisure. Management implications are discussed in the context of Yellowstone National Park which recently became the first US National Park to approve a cell phone management plan.

Three generations of women's leisure: Changes, challenges and continuities

This paper examines the leisure lives of twelve women, from four families, across three generations. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with ‘trios’ of three generations of women, I examine changes and shifts in women's leisure across the life-course and within families. At the outset of the research I was interested primarily in identifying changes, but soon the data revealed that the women transmitted both habits and understanding of leisure down the generations. An important question for gender studies is if women transmit leisure values and practices across generations does this mean that women's leisure lives remain unchanged since early feminist leisure theory? The challenges for the participants of this study were to achieve some autonomy and change in their leisure patterns, even though they demonstrated that many of those patterns remained extremely similar.

Meanings of leisure among young consumers of a Rio de Janeiro low-income community

This study investigated the meanings attached to leisure by low-income young consumers. In order to achieve this research objective, the study was conducted in a low-income community in the city of Rio de Janeiro. We used semi-structured interviews with community leaders and observation to acquire a preliminary knowledge of the field. We then interviewed 80 young people with ages varying from 15 to 25 years old. The data were treated qualitatively and quantitatively, using cluster analysis. The results showed, as expected, that these consumers have limited resources for leisure activities, due to lack of money, time or both. However, although the subjects recognise leisure as an important part of their lives, they attribute different meanings to it. Also, their understanding of free time and leisure varies somewhat. The findings provide evidence that these consumers' view of leisure, to some extent, resembles a pre-industrial understanding of leisure, associated with time for rest and time with family and friends. The results also permitted the identification of four different clusters, based on the meanings attributed to leisure and free time, individual aspirations and demographic characteristics.

Is the weekend dead? Pedagogical reflections on leisure philosophies, praxis and social change in academic work/life

This pedagogical essay examines learning about leisure philosophies by contrasting counter-hegemonic praxis to dominant contemporary ideologies of work in the neoliberal age. Principles of shabbat and Slow Foods were engaged to explore concepts of leisure and time in a senior leisure philosophies course; a teaching memoir contextualizes emergent insights to work/life imbalance among students and professors. We draw on Paulo Freire and Mark Kingwell to suggest conscientization emerged through an experiential and reflective interplay of principles and actions. Critique reflects on concerns involving intellectual labour and the academic workforce in the modern knowledge economy. Humanistic recognition that leisure can foster better living through awareness of being and understanding time as life can contribute to a good life, social change and justice in the academic workplace and beyond. What we learned draws attention to structural dimensions of political economy relevant to a broader understanding of leisure and wellbeing in Canada.

Cultura como prática de cidadania: uma perspectiva ampliada do conceito

The purpose of this article is to contribute, in general, for the deconstruction of the understanding of culture as a simple object and therefore, via all rules, treated as an accessory of the parties of public policies, almost always reduced as an understanding of leisure, fun and superfluous. We come from the idea that the culture is introduced in all aspects of the life of the society. The bibliographic research points out to a new perspective, that considerate the prosecution of the citizenship from the cultural manifest and the culture not as isolated from the whole society, but as right for all citizens.

Theorisations of leisure in inter-war Britain

The National Conference on the Leisure of the People in 1919 marked the emergence of a public discourse on the nature and purpose of leisure in inter-war Britain. One strand of this discourse saw leisure to be problematic as new forms of mass and passive entertainment, the ‘enforced leisure’ of unemployment and the right use of leisure became areas of social concern. Perceptive critics, however, conceptualised leisure as a social sphere in which a new and better post-war society could be built through a democratic ‘new’ leisure and the use of leisure as a vehicle for education in citizenship. Leisure was widely documented in contemporary social surveys and became valued by local councils of social service in developing social life and community identity on new housing estates. This paper argues that a new ontology of leisure was forged between the wars as the Victorian emphasis on rational recreation and private morality was superseded by an understanding of leisure as a social product of late modernity.

Leisure and spirituality: An engaged and responsible pursuit of freedom in work, play, and worship

The intention of this paper is to propose a holistic model of leisure that might inspire a renaissance of leisure as an exciting and vibrant paradigm that helps centre people's spirituality. Spirituality is about the path people follow in life and the experience of an inner presence of the divine or sacred as they follow this path. The first section will examine models of leisure from historical and contemporary perspectives then expand on the classical understanding of leisure as a state of freedom that emerges from engaging responsibly in all of time and activity and not just a segment of time or activity. Leisure accordingly embraces people's work, play, and worship. It helps foster an awakening and paying attention to life's purpose and what people most desire in life; namely a spirituality rooted in an inner presence of happiness and well‐being. The final and concluding section will focus on suggestions for inspiring such a renaissance.

Leisure and the Obligation of Self‐Work: An Examination of the Fitness Field

This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.

Re-Framing Questions: Assessing the Significance of Leisure

Leisure research has received scant attention from researchers in other disciplines and has had relatively little impact on social policy to date. It is argued in this paper that re-framing the questions posed by leisure scholars could help to increase the visibility of the field, as well as increase awareness of the relevancy and significance of leisure for individuals, communities and societies. The re-framing process suggested would involve examination of the complex inter-connections between leisure and the major social, economic, political and cultural systems that dominate our lives, as well as the implications of leisure for human rights and justice. Further, the concept of re-framing suggests the need to adopt an outward looking perspective, the need for better theoretical understanding of negative as well as positive leisure practices, and the need to address societal and global issues. The potential exists not only for a broader and more contextualized understanding of leisure, but also for leisure and leisure research to play an enhanced role in social policy development, advocacy and activism.

Philosophical Leisure as Recuperative Praxis: Texturing Human Communication

This essay advances the argument that everyday human communication has become overly phatic in nature due to a general eclipse of leisure in one's life. The eclipse of leisure is rhetorical and lived because the understanding of leisure has been distorted by rapid technological advancement and its permeation into everyday life. This essay uses the couplet philosophical leisure to remind the reader of the classical sense of leisure, which shifts our understanding of leisure back to its etymological and philosophical origin. Additionally, this essay demonstrates that while the state of human communication is currently flat and void of otherness, the recuperative power of philosophical leisure can shift communicative attributes into a deep and textured way of communicating with others.

여가활동에 대한 대학생들의 인식 및 참여도 분석 연구

The Purpose of this study was to estimate the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of perception and participation in leisure activities, and to describe these variables, and to investigate the relationship between these variables and selected demographic characteristics among students who live in the region of Seoul and Kyonggi Province. The subjects selected in this study were 750 students who living in the region of Seoul and Kyonggi Province. The Instrument, which evidenced acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability, was formulated by adopting existing instruments and developing new items. The instrument used in this study proved to have high reliability and validity, as a result of conducting a test. This statistical method used this study is percent, frequence, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and correlation analysis. The finding of this study are as follows First, the analysis of the correlation among college students` leisure activity style, their understanding of it and their participation in it produced the following findings: there appeared a correlation between leisure activity pattern and its understanding. And, there also appeared to be a correlation among leisure activity pattern, frequency of participation, and period of participation. Namely, the three variables were all in a close correlation with one another. Second, the followings were the findings about the correlation among demographic variables, leisure activity pattern, its perceptions and participation: there was a significant correlation among leisure activity pattern, demographic variables, understanding of leisure, leisure`s behavioral factor, and participation in leisure activity. Third, the correlation between understanding of leisure and behavioral factors was as follows : the correlation between the two groups was found to be significant. the understanding of leisure showed a significant correlation with behavior factors when the frequency, period and intensity of participation in leisure activities were connected to behavioral factors through understanding of leisure, because the behavioral factors were much affected by it.

What is Leisure? The Perceptions of Recreation Practitioners and Others

The purposes of this research were to determine if agreement exists among leisure services practitioners regarding the meaning of leisure and to examine how they describe themselves and the body of knowledge related to leisure services. In addition, these responses were compared with a group of individuals outside the field to determine if these practitioners possess a unique understanding of leisure, leisure practitioners, and the body of knowledge. Members of the Recreation Branch of the Ohio Parks and Recreation Association (n = 108) and a purposive sample of employees of two local adoption agencies (n = 30) completed questionnaires, including a True/False section, a three-part free-list component, and demographic information. Data were analyzed according to consensus modeling theory using Anthropac™ data analysis software and SPSS™. The True/False data indicated high agreement, and thus, “culturally correct” definitions of leisure for each group that support traditional and multidimensional definitions of leisure. When analyzed along with the free-list data, the most frequently reported dimensions of leisure paralleled traditional definitions (i.e., free time, activities). The responses of both groups indicate that professionals need to know about management and activities. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to models of service provision.

Knowing Something About Leisure: Building a Bridge Between Leisure Philosophy and Recreation Practice

Professionals with and without degrees in recreation and leisure studies (RLS) all define leisure similarly as free time, activities, choice, fun/enjoyment, and passive/relaxation (Estes, 2000, 2001, 2002; Parr & Lashua, in press). These limited views of leisure are problematic for the recreation profession because they indicate that those formally trained in RLS programs do not have an in-depth understanding of leisure, which arguably should serve as the philosophical foundation upon which recreation practice is based. I argue that this in-depth, philosophical understanding of leisure is necessary for us, as RLS professionals, in order to articulate what we do, explain why it is important, and promote the legitimacy of our profession. The purposes of this study were to (a) design an upper-division RLS course that would facilitate students' development of a philosophical understanding of leisure and critical thinking about applying leisure philosophy to practice, and (b) evaluate student outcomes to discover what students learned about leisure and how they applied their learning to their recreation practice. Findings indicated that RLS students primarily defined leisure as free time, choice, and activity, both pre- and post-course. Following the course, students' definitions were slightly more varied and included more descriptors associated with freedom, creative thought, personal enhancement, and experience. Students perceived that their learning impacted their recreation practice in a variety of ways including: advocating for the profession, educating others about leisure, and enhancing participants' understanding of how leisure influences quality of life.

Women's Leisure Activities, Their Social Stereotypes and Some Implications for Identity

An understanding of leisure as an area of occupational performance that can contribute to the individual's personal and social development is important to the occupational therapist. The knowledge bases from other disciplines, such as sociology and psychology, have much to offer in developing this understanding. Social identity and stereotype theories and symbolic interactionism suggest that leisure stereotypes may exist and could have an impact on identity.In order to test this concept, 12 leisure activities were used as a means to assess whether leisure stereotypes exist for women. Stereotypes consisting of between 4 and 11 words were obtained using the checklist method, with 40 participants contributing to each stereotype (120 participants contributed in total). The stereotypes were found to include characteristics that were both positively and negatively valued and, consequently, they had a range of favourableness ratings. All but one, golf, were positively evaluated images. The implications of these results are discussed, in the context of relevant theories from sociology, psychology and feminist literature.

Conceptualizing Resistance: Women's Leisure as Political Practice

The idea of leisure as resistance focuses attention on the political nature of leisure, and specifically on the potential for leisure to enhance individual empowerment and to bring about positive social change. In this paper, the different theoretical perspectives that have led researchers to the idea of leisure as resistance, including structuralism, post-structuralism, and interactionism, are discussed. Using insights from these perspectives, three issues related to the conceptualization of resistance are examined: the collective versus individual nature of resistance; the question of outcomes of resistance; and the issue of intentionality. It is argued that resistance is, by definition, both individual and collective, and that research on resistance needs to focus on the specific types of oppression and constraint being resisted through leisure. However, while intentionality and outcome are also important aspects of resistance, they should not be seen as defining characteristics. Intentional acts to resist may be more or less successful, and successful resistance may occur without prior intent. Although the focus of this analysis is on women's leisure, the framework developed here can be applied to all forms of resistance, and hopefully can be used to enhance our understanding of leisure as political practice.

A Commentary On The Perils Of Intellectual Isolation

According to a study recently conducted by Samdahl and Kelly (1999), leisure research is intellectually isolated, not only from what they call and relevant bodies of (p. 10), but scholars in this area are also isolated from each other and each other's work. This troubling finding about our intellectual isolation conjures up the image that we are an isolate on a sociometric map that is comprised of important and relevant bodies of literature and fields of study. The problem with our position on this map, our isolation, is self evident-by being isolated we are out of the intellectual mainstream where ideas are exchanged, research agendas are set, and theories are tested. From our position at the margins of intellectual life, we have limited visibility and little to no ability to exert influence on the agenda that is set, the ideas that are exchanged, or the theories being tested. We lack important linkages to other areas of knowledge such as the social or behavioral sciences or management sciences and we are neither informed by, nor do we inform those relevant bodies of literature and fields of study. Lacking these linkages, we initiate few conversations beyond and among ourselves and when we do engage in conversations, our audience is very small, indeed. If Samdahl and Kelly's findings accurately capture our position, then one of our most important challenges is to change our position on this map; to become more centrally located, and presumably then, more connected with important bodies of knowledge and other scholars who examine leisure. The authors offer us a glimpse at an important reason why we are intellectually isolated. When they discuss outside research on leisure (research conducted by non-leisure scholars), they state that this research addresses leisure and recreation within the context the family, health, urban planning, culture, and the economy O but most [articles] have little relevance to leisure (p. 10). This statement infers two crucial indictments of leisure researchers and practitioners; first, that leisure researchers do not examine leisure as a part of those important contexts, and that perhaps, as a result, we examine leisure from a non-holistic, compartmentalized perspective. To understand leisure better, we take it out of its context and hold it up to the light to examine its parts and systems and possible meanings. In doing so, all of the relationships and intricacies between leisure and its context are torn or altered. What we end up with, then, is an understanding of leisure in isolation of context and meaning; stripped bare of the family, of health, urban planning, culture, and the economy. The second indictment inferred in Samdahl and Kelly's statement is that practitioners also view leisure in that same mechanistic, discrete way. When societal factors such as family, health, and environments in which people live have little relevance to a practitioner, is not the practitioner viewing leisure as separate from other pertinent community and societal factors? While I do not believe that this second inference is true, perhaps what Samdahl and Kelly mean is that practitioners are looking for technical assistance when they read journals. The study conducted by Jordan and Roland (1999) offers some insight to this question and is discussed in the next section. Jordan and Roland (1999) report equally troubling findings from their study of differences that exist between academics and practitioners on the frequency of reading research and attitudes toward research. Their findings show that between 61% to 86% of all respondents in their study, both academics and practitioners, rarely or never read a research journal. While this finding may be influenced by a small sample that does not represent the population from which it was drawn, it tells us that leisure research exerts little to no impact on advancing the profession or influencing professional practice, at least via research journals. …

Abnormal Leisure: Invasive, Mephitic and Wild Forms

Twinning leisure with positive experience is the field orthodoxy. There are good reasons for this. In bidding for scarce resources, leisure professionals need to emphasize the social benefits of leisure investment. The cost is that our understanding of leisure is distorted by accentuating the positive side of experience. This paper argues that leisure studies have allowed the parameters of leisure to be defined by a medical model of social practice. Abnormal leisure has been treated as the sphere of medical practitioners, psychoanalysts and criminologists. There is no substantive reason why this is the case. Indeed the paper suggests that the relaxation of rules and inhibitions associated with many forms of leisure means that there is an elective affinity between leisure and deviant activity. In order to correct the medicalized view of leisure it is necessary to challenge both the view of leisure professionals that leisure, is about positive experience, and the category of abnormal behaviour. The paper offers a preliminary basis for mounting this challenge by identifying three forms of abnormal leisure: invasive, mephitic and wild. The purpose of the paper is not to criticize leisure professionals or for that matter medical practitioners. Rather, the aim is to restore balance and richness to the field. It is argued that this balance was lost in the 17th century when the medicalized model of human behaviour began to gain ascendancy.

Leisure and culture: Issues for an anthropology of leisure

The coverage of and interest in non‐Western and cross‐cultural aspects of leisure seems to be on the increase in leisure studies. Although this is a welcome trend in the current climate of multiculturalism, there is currently no systematic agenda for the anthropological study of leisure. I suggest that four issues should be addressed to serve as a foundation for an anthropology of leisure. These include (a) the ethnography of leisure, (b) the cross‐cultural validity of the concept of leisure, (c) leisure and adaptation, and (d) leisure and the evolution of culture. Although my position is scientific, materialistic, and comparative, researchers who bring other perspectives can also contribute to the cross‐cultural understanding of leisure. Most important, anthropologists must come to realize that leisure is a topic worth their attention, and leisure researchers must make use of anthropological resources and not just reprise old and erroneous beliefs about leisure and culture that have become canonical in the field.