leisure

The term leisure originated from the word 'licere', which means permission: 'a license to be free, to do what you desire'. Also found is the word 'otium' which means free time: time which may or may not be used for self-improvement. ''Skole' means free of obligations: a serious, studious and contemplative endeavor to become a good person.

Tot de 20e eeuw werd leisure (consumptie) ingezet om je te onderscheiden binnen diverse sociale klassen; “what would become from the 1900s onwards a mass consumer market for leisure and with the idea of leisure as cultural competition between different status groups across social spectrum (oa Bourdieu)”

Denk hierbij ook aan Veblen met zijn Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). “Leisure is a means of conspicuous consumption for those who had no need to work and who used it as a means acquiring reputability and status.”

In de plaats kwam een van klasse losgemaakte interpretatie naar de voorgrond, ongeveer gelijktijdig met de ontzuiling in Nederland. “Scolars suggested that leisure activities are not necessarily prescribed by the demands of work, but instead are often less defined and are expected by individuals to reflect their own individual choices and tastes.”

Echter, onder deze individuele benadering zit wel een kritiek vanuit ongelijkheid in de samenleving “uncovering the inequalities of class, gender, ethnicity, age and ability which tend to limit opportunities for leisure.”

Rojek (Decentring Leisure, 1995) haakt in op de ‘liquid society’ waarin werk, klasse en vrijetijd niet meer verbonden zijn (maar door elkaar heen lopen). “If human lives today are marked by their freedom from hegemony (machtsstructuren) of any specific meaning it is concepts such as risk, contingency, fragmentation, speed, change and de-differentation which can best reveal the complexity of leisure in our lives. If leisure cannot be separated from other aspects of people’s lives then the study of leisure should better proceed as cultural studies.”

Leisure lifestyles
Those influenced by postmodernism and cultural studies argue that social class and work were becoming less significant to understanding leisure behavior than individual life-style choices centered around patterns of consumerism based on youth, gender and ethnicity.
During the 1990s the concept continued to grow. Leisure life-styles today are thus seen as more to do with individual search for authenticity. They are seen as identikits constructed and facilitated by global flows of consumer products and culture.

In 2010 is Rojek weer een stap verder gegaan in zijn denken over leisure. Hij schrijft in de Labour of Leisure:

…freedom carries with it constraint and that constraint implies social and economic forces which position individual and group behavior. I can pursue leisure activities that fulfill the dictate of my private conscience. But my private conscience is a thing that is closely tied-up with the values of my family, community, education and work-group. It reflects the power divisions and interests thereof. My private conscience may reinforce the values of the community, in which case my leisure practice is that of a model citizen. Conversely, I may dissent from the values of my community and adhere to values of some subculture or counterculture located as anti-structure of dissent and resistance. Acts of resistance in leisure do not necessarily sever ties between private conscience and the value of the community. On the contrary, they make private conscience an issue in that I have to justify why I choose non-conformity or resistance in my free time in settings where there is a disposition to tolerate and confirm my leisure trajectory of illicit behaviour [..] There are in each of us two consciences: one is not oneself but society living and acting within us; the other, on the contrary, represents that in us that which makes us an individual (p68).

The old idea that leisure is freely chosen time or time used without constraints of everyday life produces a false view as leisure as pure voluntarism. In leisure we are not free. It is more accurate to propose that in leisure we are differently positioned (p72).

Hij schrijft hier dat leisure ook gaat over je verhouden tot de ander(en). Vanuit het individu gezien gaat het over in de wereld komen, zoals Biesta dat zegt in zijn werk over pedagogiek.
In deze gedachte gang over afzetten tegen en je verhouden tot de ander zit ook de basis voor verschillende leisure perspectieven in het Leisure Revisited model. Leisure wordt vaak onterecht gezien als slechts plezier maken, uitgaan, museum pakken, theater bezoeken, etc (lesiure is pleasure). Echter het gaat veel verder dan dat. Het gaat zoals je bij Rojek ziet ook over het afwijken van de norm. Dat kan zijn in de vorm van afwijkend, abnormal, of zelfs gewelddadig gedrag. Daarnaast gaat het ook over de rol van het individu in de samenleving. Het gaat zelfs, of juist, ook over je uitspreken ten aanzien van wat er gebeurt in de maatschappij. Het afstemmen tussen waarden in jezelf, de status quo en in de maatschappij van morgen.

In The Sage Dictionary of Leisure Studies (Blackshow & Crawford, p118,119, 126,127):