What does it mean to be an individual and how can an individual exist within society? Serious Leisure and Individuality examines the circumstances in the modern world that make for individual distinctiveness, and the role of these conditions in personal and social life. "The individual," said Friedrich Nietzsche, "has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." Elie Cohen-Gewerc and Robert Stebbins explore the road to finding that privilege. They approach individuality by examining its relationship to freedom and being free, and by defining and elaborating on the concept of leisure space. They also look at individuality's place in community, citizenship, and globalization. The complex relationship between individuality and alienation is put under the microscope to highlight the negative side of being distinctive, which has adverse consequences for the individual and society. There are many studies on the modern individual that centre almost entirely on the person facing his local community and broader society. What is missing in the literature - and what Serious Leisure and Individuality provides - is a broad, comprehensive examination of individuality, particularly as it is rooted in leisure and the leisure-like areas of work.

A thoughtful examination of how we become individuals and how we fit into personal and social life.

Serious Leisure offers a comprehensive view and analysis of the current state of the sociology of leisure. Defining and differentiating the way people use their free time, Stebbins divides such activity into categories of serious, casual, and project-based leisure that he further separates into a variety of types and subtypes. Together they comprise what he calls "serious leisure." In this perspective, serious leisure constitutes systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity sufficiently substantial and interesting in nature and requiring special skills, knowledge, and experience. Casual leisure, though immediately, intrinsically rewarding, is by contrast a relatively short-lived pleasurable activity, requiring little or no special training to enjoy it. Project-based leisure is a short-term, reasonably complicated, occasional creative undertaking carried out in free time. Stebbins sets out the basic concepts and propositions that make up the three forms, focusing on their essential elements. He takes stock of the serious leisure literature as well as that for casual and project-based leisure. Stebbins sees "serious leisure" realized by way of a set of foundational concepts--organization, community, history, lifestyle, and culture--and several of their component areas. He reviews the history and background of the concept of serious leisure and then adds historical commentary on, first, casual leisure and, then, project-based leisure. Finally, he examines the future and the importance of the serious leisure perspective in a globalizing world, and some of its critical links with other fields of knowledge and practice, notably the nonprofit sector and preventive medicine. Together with its original insights, Serious Leisure offers a single, handy, coherent, comprehensive resource. It will be of interest to sociologists, labor studies specialists, and economists.

Throughout this project Stebbins has built on the work of Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss and their notion of "grounded theory." First, Stebbins extensively observed the routine activities of amateurs and professionals in each field studied. Then, as he became more familiar with the life-styles of the participants, he conducted lengthy, unstructured, face-to-face interviews with, in most cases, thirty amateur or professional respondents. Each field demanded special methods of observation, analysis, interviewing, probing, and reporting. As much as possible, however, Stebbins asked similar questions of all respondents in all fields so as to permit generalizations across these diverse fields. The result was a "substantive grounded theory" of each field studied. In Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure, Stebbins has developed a "formal grounded theory" of amateurs and professionals based on the research accumulated in all eight substantive fields. By transcending a variety of contexts, he argues, one can gain a more enduring appreciation of the elements that affect peoples' experiences in work and leisure pursuits. A thorough review of the findings across this wide range of activities, including his findings and ideas on hobbyists and career volunteers, enabled Stebbins to derive better definitions of the main concepts of the project, such as "amateur," "the public," and "serious leisure" -- as well as "professional," where he distinguishes between client-centred and public-centred professionals who, while sharing numerous ideal-typical attributes, vary as to the power and control they have over their work in a democratic society. He presents inductive conclusions about careers and the costs and rewards in the eight amateur-professional fields considered. He examines the external world of amateurs and professionals in the light of such issues as family ties, relations among amateurs and professionals and among amateurs and their employers, public images, critics and journalists, community contributions, and the question of marginality for amateurs who are caught between the work world of the professional and the casual leisure world of the majority of the population. He concludes with an exploration of the future role of serious leisure in relation to predictions of greater unemployment and increased leisure time and longevity.

The Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) is a theoretic framework developed by Robert A. Stebbins in 1973, that brings together three main forms of leisure known as serious leisure, casual leisure, and project-based leisure. The SLP has evolved considerably since 1973, and this textbook provides a synthesis of the many concepts and propositions, as well as the data supporting them. In this overview, Stebbins organizes the entire framework along conceptual lines, with careful attention to level of empirical support and validation of each concept, presenting an up-to-date version of the SLP that allows interested students and researchers of social psychology, sociology, and leisure studies, to pinpoint exact elements of the theory, the empirical base and its application.

Providing an inclusive, yet multi- layered perspective on leisure cultures in dynamic hegemonic, subcultural, and countercultural communities, this volume investigates the disciplinary and interdisciplinary aspects of leisure studies in the age of mass migration, nationalism, cultural wars, and conflicted societies in Israel. Israeli society has struggled with complicated geopolitical, intercultural, economic, and security conditions since the establishment of the State of Israel. Consequently, the emergent leisure cultures in Israel are vibrant, diversified, exuberant, and multifaceted, oscillating between Western and Middle Eastern tendencies. The chapters in this edited volume reflect dramatic influences of globalization on Israeli traditions, on one hand, and emergent local practices that reflect a communal quest of originality and authenticity, on the other hand. This book opens up a critical perspective on the tension between contested leisure cultures that are interconnected with spatial and temporal changes and interchanges. Examining leisure as a part of social, interethnic, physical, gendered, and sexual changes, the volume is a key text for scholars and students interested in leisure culture, Israeli society, education, cultural and media studies, and the Middle East.

Stebbins begins with a history of stand-up comedy, giving vital background about the industry as it emerged and flourished in the United States and subsequently developed into a popular form of entertainment in Canada. He deals with the nature of comic performance in comedy rooms - cabarets designed specifically for stand-up comedy - and examines the career of the comic: how people become interested in comedy, how they progress as amateurs, how they survive on the road and how, sometimes, they become headliners and later writers for film and television. He also discusses the business of comedy: booking agents, comedy chains such as Yuk-Yuk's, room managers, and the comics themselves as entrepreneurs. As the first comprehensive study of a growing phenomenon, The Laugh-Makers will interest sociologists of humour and sociologists of occupations and will contribute to our understanding of Canadian popular culture.

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.

Using the concept of fulfilment and the framework of the serious leisure perspective, this book examines the signposts marking the fulfilment career. This career begins with an interest in a serious pursuit, leading to an efflorescence many years later in amateurism, hobbyism, volunteering, or devotee work - and ultimately deeper fulfilment.

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899), by Thorstein Veblen, is a treatise on economics and a detailed social critique of conspicuous consumption, based on social class and consumerism, derived from social stratification. of people and the division of labor, which are social institutions of the feudal period (9 to 15 c.) that have continued until the modern era. Veblen claims that the contemporary lords of the mansion, the entrepreneurs who own the means of production, have been employed in the economically unproductive practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure, which are useless activities that contribute neither to the economy nor to production material of the useful goods and services required for the functioning of society, while it is the middle class and the working class that usefully work in the industrialized and productive occupations that support the whole of society.Conducted in the late 1800s, Veblen's socioeconomic analyzes of business cycles and the consequent pricing policy of the U.S. economy and the emerging division of labor, by technocratic specialty (scientist, engineer, technologist, etc.), proved to be predictions. precise and sociological of the economic structure of an industrial society.