Work and leisure

This book began with a critique of the androcentric approach to the sociology of leisure which dominated the discipline during the 1970s. The traditional distinction made both in leisure studies and in popular culture between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ established a polarisation between them which, as we have come to recognise, has little to offer in advancing our understanding of most women’s leisure experiences and, indeed, is hardly relevant for those sizeable sections of the male population not in full-time paid employment. Since then a far more sophisticated set of theoretical analyses has developed of the interactions of social structural and normative forces which influence people’s leisure behaviour. These have been informed by contributions from different, often sharply opposed, perspectives and disciplines such as Marxism, feminism and cultural studies, which have challenged the prevailing orthodoxy established by social geographers and pluralists within leisure studies; and also by the synthesis of empirical material from a catholic range of sources, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data. The outcome of this protracted debate has been a measure of agreement about the need to analyse leisure patterns in relation to people’s position in the labour market using theoretical models which recognise the complex interplay of relevant forces.