Abstract
Keywords
Sharma argues in the introduction that the goal of this volume is to challenge the notion of leisure as nonproductive and consumptive by examining how leisure is understood in a variety of cultural contexts. Tourism is an important form of leisure that can often become a double-edged sword for locals in tourist destinations. Although money from tourism helps develop local infrastructure in many rural areas, many authors in this volume argue that tourism can also have a potentially deleterious effect on local cultures. Galar and Wojciechowski (‘The Vistula River leisure’) argue that leisure is rooted in culture and all of the authors contributing to this edited volume discuss the impact of social, political, and cultural situations on the numerous forms of leisure expression worldwide. Sharma’s introduction defines leisure as a ‘fundamental and inherent human aspiration’ for ‘greater harmony and peace’ that challenges people to push beyond their physical and psychological limits. This book examines a variety of cultural understandings and expressions of leisure from a global perspective and, from these observations, challenges the common narrative in the global North surrounding leisure as unproductive free time, separate from our work.
The editors of this volume chose a wide variety of cases from all over the world in order to demonstrate a wide variety of cultural understandings of leisure. In this way, they were able to support their alternative vision of leisure. Most of the country cases are outside of the global North in order to have alternative views of leisure highlighted and analyzed. If cases are within the global North, they are often addressing indigenous tribes living in those countries. In a particularly savvy chapter, Claudia Bell (‘Cultural tourism and tourism culture: Safari lodges in Namibia’) clearly defines what she means by ‘indigenous’ and highlights the fact that indigenous cultures (and, for that matter, any culture) are not static. Bell then examines the ways in which colonial roles of African subservience to wealthier white superiors in safaris is reoccurring in the contemporary safari tourism industry within Namibia.
Rudy Dunlap (‘Encountering a “leisure bum”: A critical analysis of the commodification of leisure’) writes a successful, personal chapter regarding his experiences with ‘George,’ a man who has ‘downshifted’ his lifestyle (simplifying consumption and work) in order to hike. Dunlap is exploring alternative definitions of leisure emerging in the global North by those privileged enough to make a choice to earn less money and own fewer material possessions. Bricker, Kerstetter, and Beeftink (‘Tradition and place: Tourism development from highlands to islands in Fiji’) examine the impact of sustainable tourism in two different geographic sections of Fiji to demonstrate the differing impacts of tourism on Fijian communities. These chapters, as well as others in the volume, discuss various cultural understandings of leisure in an interesting and critical manner.
One major critique I have of this volume is some of the authors’ use of terms like ‘indigenous,’ ‘traditional,’ and ‘Western’ without critically interrogating these controversial terms. In a volume that aims to challenge the colonial way in which ‘Western’ countries define leisure, I expected terms like ‘developing,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘indigenous,’ and even ‘Western’ to be interrogated in a more critical manner. Bell’s chapter defines ‘indigenous’ and explains that indigenous cultures are not static, and are often influenced by contact with outside cultures. As much as I understand the need for a theoretically cohesive way to discuss alternative visions of leisure outside the global North’s dominant paradigm, terms like ‘tradition’ and ‘indigenous’ need to be problematized more in many of the chapters. I agree that alternative notions of leisure need to be understood and explored, but it is overly simplistic to put this into a binary of traditional versus modern societies. I feel that Sharma’s introduction would have benefitted from a discussion and definition of these terms.
Because the aim of the book is to introduce readers to alternative conceptions and definitions outside of the global North, the lack of discussion surrounding controversial terms does not make the book unsuccessful. In fact, in achieving its aim of introducing a worldwide, culturally based notion of leisure, the volume is quite successful. Within the volume, a number of the authors do critically interrogate notions of indigeneity and culture, moving beyond static or binary-based understandings. Chapters like Bell’s and Dunlap’s are where the book succeeds the most: besides demonstrating an alternative vision of leisure, these chapters interrogate ideas of colonial and contemporary privileges within a critical framework. Fox and Lashua’s chapter (‘Where’re ya goin’, where ya been?’) adopts this critical stance as well when discussing the development of Hawaiian concepts of leisure. Although the chapter provides an interesting look at the hybridized world of indigenous rap, I would have liked to see a clear, theoretical definition of what is a hybrid and how hybrids develop over time.
Overall, the volume proves to be successful in accomplishing its goal of introducing readers to alternative conceptions of leisure in a variety of cultural contexts. By choosing many countries outside of the global North as case studies, the authors were able to demonstrate examples of leisure practices that are not in opposition to work or that are considered unproductive. Many of the authors in this volume argue for a more holistic understanding of leisure in Northern societies. Dodd (‘Traditional leisure practice: Is it of value today?’) argues that Aboriginal Australian people had no clearly defined separate terms for leisure and work. However, something I found to be problematic was Dodd’s assessment that traditional Aboriginal culture has largely disappeared. Although many traditional languages and customs may have been lost, Aboriginal culture is not static and ahistorical. This is a culture that is evolving through its continual contact with Australian society, and has been hybridized for a long time. I feel this assessment of Dodd’s chapter applies to a few of the other chapters as well, where authors do not critically interrogate notions of tradition, indigenousness, and ‘Western’ enough in their chapters. However, there are numerous critical and thought-provoking chapters within this volume that are based on great empirical work. All of the chapters accomplish the editors’ goal of providing alternative visions and cultural understandings of leisure.