The serious leisure perspective (SLP) is the theoretic framework that synthesizes three main forms of leisure, known as serious leisure (later changed to serious pursuits to include devotee work), casual leisure, and project-based leisure. Many of the roots of the SLP date to late 1973, even though the concept itself was only formally introduced and elaborated much later in Stebbins (2007/2015). It takes its name from serious leisure, mainly because that form was the first to be studied. Research began in 1973 on the first of these (it examined amateurs in classical music and was reported in, for example, Stebbins 1976). Work continued from thereon, with more studies of other amateurs, then various hobbyists, career volunteers, casual leisure participants, and those engaged in project-based leisure. Within each form numerous types and subtypes have also emerged over the years.
It should be noted at the outset that parts of the SLP had been discussed before, or were being discussed as, I entered this area. Nash (1960), De Grazia (1962, pp. 332–336), Glasser (1970, pp. 190–192), Kaplan (1975, pp. 80, 183), and Kando (1980, p. 108) had all recognized the distinction between serious and casual leisure. Super’s (1984) discussion of the nature of leisure is, from the standpoint of the SLP, the most sophisticated of these works. Nevertheless, they conceived of them much more particularly, in terms of illustrative activities like creatively playing a musical instrument or skillfully playing a sport vis-à-vis lounging before the TV or strolling in a park. Furthermore, in a far more simplistic way than suggested now by the SLP, the first four were inclined toward serious leisure as the ideal way for people in post-industrial society to spend their free time.
That the Perspective (wherever Perspective appears as shorthand for serious leisure perspective, to avoid confusion, the initial letter will be capitalized) takes its name from the first of these should, in no way, suggest that I regard it, in some abstract sense, as the most important or superior of the three.1 I hope the following pages will demonstrate the folly of such thinking. Rather, the Perspective is so titled, simply because it got its start in the study of serious leisure; that kind of leisure is, viewed strictly from the standpoint of intellectual invention, the godfather of the other two.
Furthermore, serious leisure has become the point of reference 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. Be that as it may, I might have titled it “core activity perspective,” for all three forms are labels for kinds of distinctive sets of interrelated actions or steps that must be followed to achieve an outcome or product that the participant finds attractive. For instance, in serious leisure, a core activity of alpine skiing is descending snow-covered slopes, that of cabinet making is shaping and finishing wood, and that of volunteer fire fighting is putting out blazes and rescuing people from them. In each case the participant takes several interrelated steps to successfully ski down hill, 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, savor beautiful scenery, and offer simple volunteer services (e.g., handing out leaflets, directing traffic in a parking lot, clearing snow off the neighborhood hockey rink). In leisure projects core activities are intense, though limited in time and moderate in complexity, as seen in the actions of serving as scorekeeper during an amateur sports tournament or serving as museum guide during a special exhibition of artifacts.
Engaging in the core activity (and its component steps and actions) is a main feature that attracts participants to the leisure in question and encourages them to return for more. That is, the core activity is a value in its own right, even if more strongly held for some leisure activities than others. Nevertheless, pursuit of this kind of activity and the experience it generates is only part of the full explanation of leisure, as such analytic avenues as leisure institution, leisure organizations, leisure context, and leisure career suggest.
Similarly, I might have dubbed this framework the “leisure experience perspective.” After all each of the three forms refers to an identifiable kind of experience had during free time. Indeed, it fits all three of Mannell’s (1999) conceptualizations of this experience, as subjectively defined leisure, as immediate conscious experience, and as post hoc satisfaction. Still this label would be too limiting, for the Perspective is broader than what people experience in their leisure. It also provides a way of looking on the social, cultural, and historical contexts of that experience (see Stebbins 2017a).2 A similar problem bedevils Tomlinson’s (1993) suggestion that serious leisure be called “committed leisure.” Though we shall see in Chap. 3 that commitment is certainly an important attitude in serious leisure, it is, nevertheless, too narrow to serve as a comprehensive identifier of the latter. Moreover, the other two forms in the Perspective also generate commitment on occasion (e.g., fan commitment to a sport team or genre of music).
Because the serious and casual forms have sometimes stirred discussion about the relative merit of one or the other, let us be clear from the outset that the SLP treats of each as important in its own way. That is, it is much less a question of which is best, than a question of how combinations of two or three of the forms serve individuals, categories of individuals (e.g., sex, age, social class, religion, nationality), and their larger communities and societies. This, in turn, leads to such considerations as general leisure lifestyle, optimal leisure lifestyle, and leisure constraints and facilitators, all of which have become important concepts in their own right in this framework. Furthermore, casual leisure and less often project-based leisure sometimes give birth to serious leisure careers (see Chap. 4). Finally, note that my earlier discussions of serious leisure were felt to be too heavily weighted toward that form, sparking challenges that I was neglecting casual leisure (e.g., Rojek 1995; Kleiber 2000). See Chap. 2 for further consideration of this matter of imbalance.
The idea of perspective communicates at least three important points. One, any perspective is a way of theoretically viewing leisure phenomena. So, this one, too, provides a unique prism through which to look at what people do in their free time. Two, as a theoretic framework, the SLP synthesizes the three forms, showing at once their distinctive features, their similarities, and their interrelationships. Three, although it was never my intention as I moved from one study of free-time activity to the next, my findings and theoretic musings have nevertheless evolved into a typological map of the world of leisure (presented later in Fig. 2.1). That is, so far as I can tell at this moment, all leisure (at least in Western society) can be classified according to one of the three forms. But, consistent with the exploratory approach that has guided much of basic research in this field, open-ended inquiry and observation could, some day, suggest adding one or more new forms or changing ones previously conceptualized. Briefly put, the grounded theoretic construction of scientific typologies, in principle, never results in completed intellectual edifices.
Need for a Synthesis
As this book will show the SLP has flowered bountifully since 1973, and with this efflorescence, has made it increasingly difficult for all but the most dedicated of scholars to grasp the present complex theoretic construction in all its detail. For this reason alone a user-friendly synthesis is badly needed, one based on the many concepts and propositions comprising the Perspective and including a close, up-to-date look at the research bearing on them. There have been four stock takings (Stebbins 1992, 2001a; 2007/2015; Elkington and Stebbins 2014), none of which however, has attempted to organize the entire framework while noting all available relevant empirical work and sometimes the absence thereof.3 This is not therefore a mere update of the four stock takings. For a proper synthesis accomplishes what they were never designed to do; namely, integrate the Perspective along conceptual and contextual lines with attention to level of empirical support and validation of each concept. And, unlike the earlier updates, this synthesis is based in part on certain critiques of aspects of the SLP, which have sometimes inspired further conceptual clarification and on occasion even led to new concepts. The Index co...