Social Worlds and the Leisure Experience

Robert A. Stebbins

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787697157
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

Scholars in leisure studies have amassed an impressive record of knowledge bearing on the social worlds of diverse serious pursuits, yet this sphere of modern life still needs a coherent statement about what social worlds consist of, what they do, and where they fit in social theory. The core activities at the base of the leisure experience are pursued within the social world that encompasses such activity. To understand more fully why people are attracted to and continue with a serious pursuit, we must also understand its social world.
This concept is anchored in social theory and, in the domain of leisure, the serious leisure perspective. The social world and its accompanying ethos are centrally implicated as one of six distinctive qualities of the serious pursuits. Taking inspiration from Anselm Strauss, this book discusses the members of leisure social worlds and the activities they enthusiastically pursue, as well as examining the culture and communications of these worlds.

CHAPTER 1

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Interest in the social worlds of leisure is substantial, though one largely expressed along lines of the serious leisure perspective (SLP). This book is based on what has been learned since 1973 about those worlds as acquired through the research efforts of the author and many others. In the present book, I set out a variety of hypothetical generalizations about the social worlds of amateurs, hobbyists, and career volunteers, each extrapolated from the relevant studies among the 30 conducted within the conceptual framework of the SLP since 1973.¹

This book is an exercise in the study of the social organization of modern leisure at the meso-level of theory and analysis. Although the social world first appeared in the serious leisure literature in Stebbins (1982), I have only undertaken in-depth conceptualization of this kind in two other publications (Stebbins, 2002, Chapter 6 and Stebbins, 2017, Chapter 5). In both of these publications, the social world was but one of many concepts on the table for consideration. In the present volume, it is, by contrast, the principal plate on the menu. Exclusive and detailed analysis is in order for this idea, it being a concept imported from symbolic interactionist sociology and therefore in need of some conceptual modification when applying it in the domain of leisure. In other words, unlike some other concepts in leisure studies, the social world is not native to this discipline; it did not emerge from exploratory fieldwork on leisure activities.

1.1. THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL WORLD

The idea of the social world is a scientific construction, albeit one that members of such a formation seem to recognize easily once given a simple description of their own. The social world is not, therefore, a folk term, even though it is exciting to be in one that will be described later in this chapter as “complex.” That is, there is in such involvement a feeling of belonging to a distinct social entity, of identity, and a sophistication about how that entity functions and about one’s place in it. Moreover, a given complex social world is dynamic, often changing as members come and go, improving (or declining) in the core activity, while the nature of its tourists and strangers can vary for better or worse.²

Social worlds may be studied with reference to a demographic category as Unruh (1983), for example, did with the elderly or to a social status such as a variety of deviant (e.g., Bradley-Engen & Ulmer, 2009) or of ethnicity (e.g., Taylor, 1983, Chapter 1). Yet, these applications of the concept are rare compared with those centered on “something palpable like activities, sites, technologies, and organizations typical of particular social worlds” as Strauss (1978, p. 121) urged. Moreover, these conceptions of the social world differ substantially from that presented in the many books using the social world as a rough equivalent of society. The latter conception centers on broad social worlds, or social environments, in which most people interact on a routine basis framed in a shared culture and social organization (see Amazon.com/books/search term “social world”).

Nevertheless, a major problem with hitching research on social worlds to the wagon of activity is that the latter, despite Strauss’s observation, has until recently been insufficiently conceptualized. To be sure, the idea is a palpable matter, but what does that mean in real life? What is an activity? Nowadays, in leisure studies, it has been defined as 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” (Stebbins, 2012, p. 6). Over the years, it has become a foundational concept in the SLP. There it is argued that our existence 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, may be categorized as work, leisure, or non-work obligation. They are, furthermore, general. In some instances, they refer to the behavioral 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 (not as patron in a restaurant).

The concept of activity is an abstraction, and as such, one 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 whereas 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?

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 firefighting, it 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, savor beautiful scenery, and offer simple volunteer services (e.g., handing out leaflets, directing traffic in a theater parking lot, and clearing snow off the neighborhood 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 by a jazz clarinetist. The core activity in mowing a lawn (non-work obligation) is pushing or riding the mower. Executing an attractive core activity and its component steps and actions amount to a prominent feature drawing participants to the general activity encompassing it, because this core directly enables them to reach a cherished goal. It is likewise for obligated disagreeable core activities. In short, the core activity has motivational value of its own, even if more strongly held for some activities than others and even if some activities are disagreeable but still have to be done.

Therefore, we may conclude that leisure is a positive activity. Positiveness is a personal sentiment felt by people who pursue those things in life they desire, the things they do to make their existence, rewarding, attractive, and therefore worth living (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Stebbins, 2009). Such people feel positive about these aspects of life. Because of this sentiment, they may also feel positive toward life in general. A primary focus of positive social scientific research is on how, when, where, and why people pursue those things in life that they desire, on the things they do to create a worthwhile existence that, in combination, is substantially rewarding, satisfying, and fulfilling. General and core activities, sometimes joined with role, most of the time agreeable, but some of the time disagreeable, form the cornerstone of leisure. It is through certain activities that people, propelled by their own agency, find positive things in life, which they blend and balance with certain negative things they must also deal with. Activities, positive and negative, are carried out in the domains of work, leisure, and non-work obligation.

Activity as just defined is, by and large, a foreign idea in psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Sure, scholars there sometimes talk about, for instance, criminal, political, or economic activity, but in so doing, they are referring, in general terms, to a broad category of behavior, not a particular set of actions comprising a pursuit. Instead, our positive concept of activity knows its greatest currency in the interdisciplinary fields of leisure studies and physical education and, more recently, kinesiology. And I suspect that the first adopted the idea from the second two. There has been for many years in physical education discussion of and research on activities promoting conditioning, exercise, outdoor interests, human movement, and the like.

1.2. ACTIVITY AND SOCIAL WORLD

The concept of the social world has considerable empirical support, despite the difficulty it presents when under study. Unruh (1980, p. 277) developed the following definition:

A social world must be seen as a unit of social organization which is diffuse and amorphous in character. Generally larger than groups or organizations, social worlds are not necessarily defined by formal boundaries, membership lists, or spatial territory. […] A social world must be seen as an internally recognizable constellation of actors, organizations, events, and practices which have coalesced into a perceived sphere of interest and involvement for participants. Characteristically, a social world lacks a powerful centralized authority structure and is delimited by […] effective communication and not territory nor formal group membership.

In another article, Unruh added that the typical social world is characterized by voluntary identification, by a freedom to enter into and depart from it (Unruh, 1979). Moreover, because it is so diffuse, ordinary members are only partly involved in the full range of its activities. After all, a social world may be local, regional, multiregional, national, even international. Third, people in complex societies such as Canada, Britain, and the United States are often members of several social worlds. Finally, social worlds are held together, to an important degree, by semiformal, or mediated, communication. They are rarely heavily bureaucratized yet, due to their diffuseness, they are rarely characterized by intense face-to-face interaction. Rather, communication is typically mediated by newsletters, posted notices, telephone messages, mass mailings, Internet communications, radio and television announcements, and similar means, with the strong possibility that in the future the Internet could become the most popular of these.

As noted already, Strauss has argued that palpable phenomena are what engender social worlds, and I have argued that, in leisure, the core activities of the serious pursuits serve this purpose most clearly. More specifically, all forms of these pursuits are embedded in a social world, with the liberal arts hobbies having the weakest in this regard. The latter are, for the most part, individualistic undertakings. Outside the immensely interpersonal enterprise of learning a language, their acquisition rarely requires these hobbyists to enter a social world (even if, as explained later, some do enter tribes). Indeed, they can seldom find one to enter, a characteristic distinguishing this hobby from other forms of serious leisure. Additionally, some other hobbies and amateur pursuits, among them woodworking, bird-watching, stamp collecting, and piano playing, can be pursued alone, thus isolating a proportion of these enthusiasts from all leisure organizations, social networks, small groups, and social worlds included. By adopting such a lifestyle, these people are denied, or deny themselves, an important social motive for engaging in these leisure activities.

Thus the social worlds of the serious pursuits are complex phenomena, even while some are more complex than others. This excludes most casual leisure and all project-based activities. The first are either individualistically experienced as hedonic pleasure (i.e., play, relaxation, sensory stimulation, casual volunteering, and pleasurable aerobic activity) or enjoyed as an instance of mass consumption (i.e., passive and active entertainment and sociable conversation). The social organization of the second set, where it exists, commonly takes the form not of a social world but of that of a postmodern tribe (Maffesoli, 1996; see also the next chapter in this book).

Furthermore, since social worlds are enduring phenomena, they cannot by definition be found in project-based leisure, an evanescent interest. This may seem arbitrary, for strangers supplying material and services may be necessary in making something (e.g., a rock garden, a playroom in the basement, and a macramé decoration) and tourists may become involved as appreciators of the finished project. But, critically, there are few if any members (regular or insider) to constitute a social world centered on a project, given that projects are usually one-person undertakings or more rarely two or three other people who just for that project help build a garage, prepare a wedding reception, put on a skit, or take a canoe trip.

1.3. THE PRIMACY OF THE SOCIAL WORLD

We have yet to analyze the social world of a particular serious leisure activity by exploring all the dimensions and entities that make it up theoretically. Thus we are in no position at the moment to say much more about this kind of leisure organization than what has been said in this chapter. Furthermore, small groups (dyads and triads included) and social networks also help comprise the typical leisure social world, but satisfactory analyses of these are missing as well (for an exception see Bendle & Patterson, 2009). The same holds for newsletters, magazines, websites, mass mailings, and similar mediated means of communication. In fact, the culture of the various social worlds of, for instance, amateur science or sport, hobbyist outdoor activities, and social movement volunteering are yet to be properly examined, though aspects of them show up in the Foundational Ethnographies.³

Still, the people who make up particular leisure social worlds and the practices, or patterns of behavior, that have emerged there over time have been reasonably well explored. This has happened not because of systematic research on social worlds (of which there has been very little), but because of the large number and variety of ethnographic studies that have been conducted on the core leisure activities around which they have taken shape. Research has also revealed that, in themselves, serious leisure social worlds, when recognized as such, become attractive formations (Stebbins, 1999, p. 267), though they appear to inspire people more to stay in them than to join them in the first place.

Usually, it takes time to learn about the social world of, say, darts or volunteering for the Scouts or the Guides, something that really only effectively occurs once inside that world. Nevertheless, I found that belonging to and participating in the social worlds of theater, entertainment magic, stand-up comedy, and classical music were heady experiences for many of the amateurs I interviewed. For them, membership and participation constituted two additional powerful reasons for pursuing their art, albeit two social reasons. This is true, in part, because belonging to such a world helps socially locate individual artists in mass urban society as well as helps personalize to some extent their involvement there. Today’s serious leisure social world is significantly less impersonal than either the modern mass or the postmodern tribe. Moreover, serious leisure activities generate their own attractive lifestyles, which evolve with reference to particular social worlds.

Indeed, nearly every serious leisure activity is anchored in a vibrant social world endowed with the capacity – once recognized – to attract and hold a large proportion of its participants. Although the activity itself is exciting, the excitement it generates is also greatly enhanced by the presence of networks of like-minded regulars and insiders, important strangers, local and national organizations, spaces for pursuing the activity, and tourists who visit from time to time – the audiences, spectators, admirers, onlookers, and others (these terms are defined shortly). Magazines, newsletters, courses, lectures, workshops, and similar channels of information make up another prominent part of the typical serious leisure enthusiast’s social world.

The social world is a diffuse, amorphous entity to be sure, but nevertheless one of great importance in the impersonal, segmented life of the modern urban community. Its importance is further amplified by the parallel element of the special ethos (which is missing from Unruh’s conception), namely, that such worlds are also constituted of a substantial subculture. One function of this subculture is to inter-relate the many components of this diffuse and amorphous entity. In other words, there is associated with each social world a set of s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Conceptual Framework
• Chapter 2 Members and Their Activities
• Chapter 3 Culture and Communication
• Chapter 4 Conclusions
• References
• Index