The Serious Leisure Perspective

An Introduction

Sam Elkington, Robert A. Stebbins, Robert Stebbins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317810407
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The "Serious Leisure Perspective" (SLP) is a theoretical framework that can help us understand the complexities of modern leisure as both an activity and an experience. Bringing together the study of serious leisure, casual leisure and project-based leisure, it is an essential component of the Leisure Studies curriculum and an invaluable tool for exploring the significance of leisure in contemporary society. This book is the first of offer a comprehensive introduction to the Serious Leisure Perspective, from fundamental principles and key concepts to in-depth and wide-ranging case studies of serious leisure pursuits.

The book introduces the history of the SLP and its position alongside other social theories that attempt to explain the nature and function of leisure. It explores important themes such as consumption, gender relations, social capital and quality of life, and delves deeply into the leisure of amateurs, hobbyists, career volunteers and occupational devotees. Every chapter includes a range of useful pedagogical features, such as review questions and group exercises, to help the student to grasp the importance of understanding leisure as a way of understanding contemporary social life and society. Combining cutting-edge theory and method with an engaging and practical interface, this is an essential text for all Leisure Studies courses and illuminating reading for any student working in Tourism, Events, Sport, Recreation, Sociology or Cultural Studies.

PART I

Foundation

1

INTRODUCTION

Basic principles

The serious leisure perspective (SLP), which is the organizing principle for this book, can be described, in simplest terms, as the theoretic framework that synthesizes three main forms ofleisure, showing, at once, their distinctive features, similarities and interrelationships (Stebbins, 2007a). Additionally, the SLP considers how the three forms – serious pursuits (serious leisure/devotee work), casual leisure and project-based leisure – are shaped by various psychological, social, cultural and historical conditions. Each form serves as a conceptual umbrella for a range of types of related activities. That the SLP takes its name from serious leisure should, in no way, suggest that it be regarded, in some abstract sense, as more important or superior than the other two. Rather the SLP is so titled simply because it got its start in the study of serious leisure; such leisure is, strictly from the standpoint of intellectual invention, the godfather of the other two. Furthermore, serious leisure has become the bench mark from which analyses of casual and project-based leisure have often been undertaken. So naming the SLP after the first facilitates intellectual recognition; it keeps the idea in familiar territory for all concerned.

While Chapter 2 provides a more thorough examination of the SLP itself, namely, its central concepts and propositions, the goal of the present chapter is to situate it within the framework of a small set of basic principles that bear on all leisure theory and research, be it in leisure studies or in its several allied fields of research and practice. We will cover these principles in the following sections: the nature of the SLP, definition of leisure, centrality of activity, positiveness of leisure activity, and the three domains of life.

The nature of the SLP

It will help in the discussion that follows to have a general understanding of the three forms that comprise the SLP (as most recently set out in Stebbins, 2012a):

• Serious pursuits

Serious leisure is the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist or volunteer activity sufficiently substantial, interesting and fulfilling for the participant to find a (leisure) career there acquiring and expressing a combination of its special skills, knowledge and experience.

Devotee work is activity in which participants feel a powerful devotion, or strong, positive attachment, to a form of self-enhancing work. In such work the sense of achievement is high and the core activity endowed with such intense appeal that the line between this work and leisure is virtually erased.

• Casual leisure is immediately intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasurable activity requiring little or no special training to enjoy it. It is fundamentally hedonic, pursued for its significant level of pure enjoyment, or pleasure.

• Project-based leisure is a short-term, reasonably complicated, one-off or occasional, though infrequent, innovative undertaking carried out in free time, or time free of disagreeable obligation. Such leisure requires considerable planning, effort, and sometimes skill or knowledge, but is for all that neither serious leisure nor intended to develop into such.

We will examine these basic forms in greater detail in Chapter 2.

The SLP offers a way of seeing and understanding the hundreds of activities that people are attracted to for the inherent satisfaction or fulfilment those activities can bring. The majority of these activities are pursued in free time: in time where there are few if any unpleasant obligations to meet, in time conventionally defined as leisure. Additionally, the latest thinking in this area (Stebbins, 2012a) has led to an expansion of the concept of serious leisure to include devotee work, or work that is so attractive that it is essentially leisure, albeit activity from which the worker gains a livelihood. The professions offer an example. Whereas devotee work is not carried out in free time – the worker here is substantially dependent on the monetary or in-kind payment made from it – it otherwise resembles serious leisure. Hence the reason for placing serious leisure and devotee work under the rubric of the serious pursuits.

The SLP also offers a way of seeing how these forms of leisure and devotee work relate to one another (Stebbins, 2012b). Examples discussed in the next chapter include how dabbling, say, of a child on the piano (casual leisure) may lead to a serious leisure goal of becoming an amateur musician (serious leisure) on the instrument. Or an adult volunteer in an art museum (serious leisure) learns about the occupation of curator (devotee work) and enters later an educational programme leading to employment in this field. Nevertheless, not all serious leisure roots in casual activity, for instance, SCUBA diving, playing the oboe, and performing the martial arts. Enthusiasts must take lessons even to begin to engage in these. Nor does all casual leisure have a serious counterpart, as is evident in watching entertainment television, observing passers-by from a pavement cafe, and taking a nap. Whereas it is possible that some leisure projects may lead to pursuit of a related serious leisure activity, others – often volunteering in arts festivals and sport competitions – are in this regard a dead end.

But, first of all, what is leisure? It is an idea with both common sense and scientific meanings.

Definition of leisure

One of the more substantial conceptual challenges in the field of leisure studies has been to define its central concept: leisure. Recognizing that the most illuminating definitions of complex concepts require an extensive treatment, Stebbins (2012a) wrote a small book on the definition of leisure. Drawing on his own ideas and those of colleagues as those ideas have emerged since approximately 1970, he developed a condensed, dictionary-style definition of leisure as un-coerced, contextually framed activity engaged in during free time, which people want to do and, using their abilities and resources, actually do in either a satisfying or a fulfilling way (or both). ‘Free time’ in this definition is time away from unpleasant, or disagreeable, obligation, with pleasant obligation being treated of here as essentially leisure. In other words homo otiosus, leisure man, feels no significant coercion to enact the activity in question (Stebbins, 2000a). Devotee work may be conceived of as pleasant obligation, in that such workers though they must make a living performing their work, do this in a highly intrinsically appealing pursuit. This definition is compatible with the serious leisure perspective, particularly since the latter stresses human agency, or ‘intentionality’ (Rojek, 2010, p. 6) – what ‘people want to do’ – and distinguishes the satisfaction gained from casual leisure vis-à-vis the fulfilment experienced in the serious forms (more on this process in Chapter 2).

Note that reference to ‘free choice’ – a long-standing component of standard definitions of leisure – is, for reasons discussed more fully elsewhere (Stebbins, 2005a), intentionally omitted from this definition. Generally put, choice is never wholly free, but rather hedged about with all sorts of conditions. This situation renders this concept and allied ones such as freedom and state of mind useless as essential elements of a basic definition (Juniu and Henderson, 2001). Note, too, that there is no reference in this definition to the moral basis of leisure as one of its distinguishing features; in other words, contrary to some stances taken in the past (e.g. Kaplan, 1960, pp. 22–25), leisure according to the SLP may be either deviant or non-deviant (discussed further in the next chapter).

Un-coerced, people in leisure believe they are doing something they are not pushed to do, something they are not disagreeably obliged to do. In this definition emphasis is ipso facto on the acting individual and the play of human agency. This in no way denies that there may be things people want to do but cannot do because of any number of constraints on choice, because of limiting social and personal conditions; for example, cost, aptitude, ability, socialized leisure tastes, knowledge of available activities, and accessibility of activities. In other words, when using this definition of leisure, whose central ingredient is lack of coercion, we must be sure to understand leisure activities in relation to their larger personal, structural, cultural and historical background, their context (see especially Chapters 3 and 4). And it follows that leisure is not really freely chosen, as some observers once claimed (e.g. Parker, 1983, pp. 8–9; Kelly, 1990, 7), since choice of activity is significantly shaped by this background. We may say, however, that leisure is freely chosen within the constraints faced by the individual chooser.

Nor may free time, as conventionally defined, be treated of here as synonymous with leisure. We can be bored in our free time, which can result from inactivity (‘nothing to do’) or from activity, which alas, is uninteresting, un-stimulating. The same can, of course, happen at work and in obligated non-work settings. Since boredom is a decidedly negative state of mind, it can be argued that, logically, it is not leisure at all. For leisure is typically conceived of as a positive mind set, composed of, among other sentiments, pleasant expectations and recollections of activities and situations. Of course, it happens at times that expectations turn out to be unrealistic, and we get bored (or perhaps angry, frightened or embarrassed) with the activity in question, transforming it in our view into something quite other than leisure. And all this may happen in free time, which exemplifies well how such time can occupy a broader area of life than leisure, which is nested within it (Stebbins, 2003).

The centrality of activity

The preceding definition of leisure is anchored in activities, which are contextually framed. An activity is a type of pursuit, wherein participants in it mentally or physically (often both) think or do something, motivated by the hope of achieving a desired end. Life is filled with activities, both pleasant and unpleasant: sleeping, mowing the lawn, taking the train to work, having a tooth filled, eating lunch, playing tennis matches, running a meeting, and on and on. Activities, as this list illustrates, abound in all three domains of life: work, leisure and non-work obligation. They are, furthermore, general. In some instances they refer to the behavioural side of recognizable roles, for example commuter, tennis player and chair of a meeting. In others we may recognize the activity but not conceive of it so formally as a role, exemplified in someone sleeping, mowing a lawn or eating lunch (but not as patron in a restaurant).

The concept of activity is an abstraction, and as such, is broader than that of role. In other words roles are associated with particular statuses, or positions, in society, whereas with activities, some are status based while others are not. For instance, sleeper is not a status, even if sleeping is an activity. It is likewise with lawn mower (person). Sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists tend to see social relations in terms of roles, and as a result, overlook activities whether aligned with a role or not. Meanwhile certain important parts of life consist of engaging in activities not recognized as roles. Where would many of us be could we not routinely sleep or eat lunch?

Moreover, another dimension separates role and activity, namely, that of statics and dynamics. Compared with the dynamic nature of activities, roles are static. Roles, classically conceived of, are relatively inactive expectations for behaviour, whereas in activities, people are actually behaving, mentally or physically thinking or doing things to achieve certain ends. This dynamic quality provides a powerful explanatory link between an activity and a person’s motivation to participate in it. Nevertheless the idea of role is useful in the study of leisure, since participants do encounter role expectations in certain activities (e.g. those in sport, work, volunteering). Although the concept of activity does not include these expectations, in its dynamism, it can, much more effectively than role, account for invention and human agency associated with the activity itself.

This definition of activity gets further refined in the concept of core activity: a distinctive set of interrelated actions or steps that must be followed to achieve the outcome or product that the participant seeks. As with general activities core activities are pursued in work, leisure, and non-work obligation. Consider some examples in serious leisure: a core activity of alpine skiing is descending snow-covered slopes; in cabinet making it is shaping and finishing wood; and in volunteer fire fighting is putting out blazes and rescuing people from them. In each case the participant takes several interrelated steps to successfully ski downhill, make a cabinet, or rescue someone. In casual leisure core activities, which are much less complex than in serious leisure, are exemplified in the actions required to hold sociable conversations with friends, savour beautiful scenery, and offer simple volunteer services (e.g. handing out leaflets, directing traffic in a theatre car park, clearing snow off the neighbourhood hockey rink). Work-related core activities are seen in, for instance, the actions of a surgeon during an operation or the improvisations on a melody performed by a jazz clarinettist. The core activity in mowing a lawn (non-work obligation) is pushing or riding the mower. Execu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Part I Foundation
• Part II The serious pursuits
• Part III Extensions
• Part IV Conclusions
• References
• Index