STUDIES IN PHYSICAL CULTURE AND TOURISM

Vol. 12, No. 1, 2005

The author of the article deals with the changes in the sphere of leisure time and recreation. She shows the evolution of and changes in the scope of the notion of leisure time on the background of contemporary political, economic and social changes in Poland, describing the phenomenon from various academic standpoints. She also refers to the phenomenon of leisure time as a space for possible profits in the context of social resources and their capitalization.

Despite its diversity of meanings and multidimensional character, the category of leisure time is often used in social science as a means for sorting out and explaining numerous phenomena. Although the concept of leisure time is more difficult to define nowadays, especially on the Polish ground, than it was several decades ago, it still remains in the sphere of interests of many areas of science, and in many of them it is considered to be the leading one. Each scientific discipline defines leisure time in a different way and emphasizes its different aspects. Spare time in the meaning free time (le temps libre) and spare time in the meaning leisure (le temps de loisir) are two different categories. This is strongly emphasized by sociologists, e.g. Sebastian de Grazia [4]. The former refers to the size of time and its sections as a sphere measurable by means of a clock; whereas the latter is time understood as a certain whole including non-productive activities and behaviours, freed from duties and obligatory activities, constituting the value in itself and thus composing a certain type of a lifestyle [19]. It corresponds to Greek skole and Roman otium, meaning activities which are disinterested, lofty and developing, in contrast to obligatory activities, especially physical work, being the basis for survival [20].

Theorists of leisure time claim unanimously that leisure time is a creation of modern industrial era, where, for the first time in social history, due to the clear separation between the place of work and place of living, a sharp division between the time of work and the time spent outside the workplace occurred. Both areas penetrating each other and not entirely separated in pre-industrial traditional societies, in the industrial era became two separate beings with attributed sets of activities and interests. This statement, however, should not lead to the conclusion about the lack of leisure time in agricultural societies. It just means that the way and style of life of those societies imposed some different methods of spending time, limited by the rhythm of farming work or even by the seasons of the year. Working hours and leisure time interwove and there appeared some unclear forms which were difficult to be univocally attributed. Similar problems were encountered by the researchers of leisure time in the Polish countryside in the 1960s and 1970s [9]. Leisure time, as understood today, was in traditional societies a privilege of the landowners, a marker of social status and position in a social hierarchy. The industrial revolution brought changes not only in the way of work – manufacturing plants, factories, development of industry – but also in the way of living, e.g. urbanization. Thus the division of time was made in the urban and industrial society [23]. Work time became the axis that marked the border between obligatory activities and other ones, the performance of which depended mainly on our attitude and will.

There appeared some academic disciplines researching only the sphere of leisure time activities of man and simultaneously trying to show individuals the proper choices or to bring people up for them. Together with the increase in the amount of leisure time in macroscale (commonness of social benefits such as paid leave, holidays, weekends, prolonged time of education of young people, longer life expectancy, pensions, larger groups of the unemployed supported with a decent social aid in Western Europe), the way of its spending has become a social problem. There were plenty of reasons for this state of affairs. Among the most important ones we should mention the change of a lifestyle into the so-called civilized one [15] (the effect of the development of civilization and its facilities), which within half a century changed the map and structure of social diseases, causing an explosion of new ones, connected mainly with sedentary lifestyle, permanent stress and improper nutrition. What is also meaningful is the fact that some time ago such a large area of social activity as leisure time constituted an attractive but poorly managed segment of the market, which soon turned out to be quite significant in the economies of many developed countries [10].

Today it is difficult to mention uninterruptedly all the scientific disciplines penetrating the area and problems of leisure time. The multitude of plots and planes of the subject matter makes it possible for researchers representing various sciences to conduct studies and construct scientific conclusions. These researchers include sociologists, psychologists and leisure time counselors, economists, medics (health sciences), biologists or geographers. The subject matter of leisure time and its management has been also to a large extent an interest of the representatives of physical culture sciences. According to the definition, physical culture sciences comprise four areas of human activity: physical education, sports, motor rehabilitation, and tourism and recreation [6]. The last one is in the main interest of the physical culture specialists who focus their attention on the subject matter of leisure.

The notion ‘recreation’ (Latin recreo – to animate, to give new strength, to bring back to life) [16] has been for a long time used interchangeably with the notion ‘leisure time’. Today’s understanding of this term indicates at least three possibilities. The first one is recreation understood as a set of behaviours realised by an individual in his free time in order to get some rest, entertainment or self-development. This meaning is most often taken as the starting point in research on participation in recreation and the ways of spending leisure time. The second way in which the phenomenon of recreation is defined is recreation understood as a process of resting after work, removing tiredness, restituting the body, and regaining strength. This definition is useful in biomedical, physiological or psychological research. The third, broadest definition, describes recreation as a social and cultural phenomenon based on the increase in the amount of leisure time and forms of human behaviour resulting from this fact [21]. The third definition allows taking a holistic, macrosocial approach as the starting point. Each of the three definitions is correct; however, each emphasizes a different dimension of the phenomenon. According to the definitions commonly accepted in physical culture sciences, what one should understand as recreation is all kinds of activities undertaken by man in his leisure time for the purpose of relaxation, entertainment and self-development. According to this definition, the necessary condition for undertaking recreational activities is disposable free time, understood as the time which is left at an individual’s disposal after performing all the obligatory activities connected with professional work and family life, and also activities connected with physiology (sleeping, eating) [11]. In this understanding, the notion of recreation is included in the notion of leisure time: recreation does not take place outside the area of leisure time. Certainly, it does not mean that there exists an explicitly described ‘list’ of recreational activities. There is only a list of features according to which a given activity is granted the name of a recreational one, that is, one performed in leisure time. The features describing recreational activities include, among others, the fact of being preformed in leisure time and providing fun and entertainment, lack of economic motivation, free will, dissimilarity from everyday tasks and duties [22]. What was also obvious for leisure time researchers was the existence of the so-called ‘third state’, which was the period of time defined as ‘semi-leisure’, involving activities which did not necessarily have to be performed, but which were not fully freewill (semi-leisure).

Nowadays, the sphere of leisure time is an area of great social changes that in modern Poland have been strongly connected with political and economic transformations and with changing social awareness. The changes that have taken place in Poland since 1989 may be called revolutionary, despite (fortunately) having occurred with no high social expense, and thanks to the social acceptance and readiness for their adoption. The consequence of political decisions has been numerous economic changes leading to establishment of new rules in the country’s economic life. Profound changes in the work market lead to revaluation of the way in which we understand leisure time and work time and also to the attribution of new meanings to these notions. These meanings are adequate for the existing reality, but not necessarily congruent with the definitions that have been functioning for years. According to the tendencies in the developed countries, time ceases to be treated dichotomically and work ceases to be the basic criterion setting the tone for the social life. Although, with such a high unemployment rate in Poland it is difficult to notice such changes at first sight, we are clearly evolving in the same direction as the developed countries of Western Europe and North America which are clearly pointing the way [1]. The industrial era, which, starting with the industrial revolution, made the breakthrough and enabled the entire social classes to reach for the privilege of isolated leisure time, is consequently transforming into the post-industrial era, the main feature of which is the development - not as much of technology and industry in the strict sense – as of information, knowledge, communication and services [20]. Work in its technocratic meaning ceases to possess such a sense and dimension, and also the understanding and role of leisure time and activities connected with it are undergoing changes. According to R. Dahrendorf work now occupies a small part of life of an average human being and it is difficult to claim that presently it still structures the individuals’ lives, giving it sense and ensuring the feeling of identity and dignity [3]. He also pays attention to the disappearance of the role of work as one of the significant elements of social control. The fact that in the post-modern society work is no longer going to be the basic regulator yields far-reaching consequences for all the fields of human activity. The changes will also concern the whole sphere of leisure time and its understanding. The appearance of the new type of employment – at a distance, often at home – due to rapid development of different types of communicators – may significantly change the image of a society. Work in services, emergence of freelance professions thanks to a higher level of education and awareness – all these changes bring with them the necessity of a different look at the subject matter of leisure time and activities which occupy this leisure time, i.e. recreation. Since it is not possible to present here all the changes which are forecast in this area, let us pay attention to one quite significant aspect of social life.

Functioning in a defined reality, individuals and social groups try to gain as much profit out of it as possible. In social awareness the main place for all capital calculations has always been the workplace – in most cases a formalized and structured institution, functioning according to set, relatively clear, although not always foreseeable, rules. The changes described above have transformed the image of human relations and also given a new meaning and sense to many notions. They have also forced people to penetrate new areas within the scope of constructing their own social space and making new relations that can result in defined resources: individual, social, public or institutional [8], which can be capitalised and used depending on the one’s needs and possibilities. Individual resources should be understood as all types of individual skills and potential (demographic, cultural and psychological). Social resources is a net of relations and interactions, which are at disposal of individuals (groups) and can, if necessary, be mobilised to realise individual or group interests. Public goods are the ones which are produced and consumed collectively and no individual can be excluded from using them (contrary to the two previous categories, they are difficult to be interpreted in market categories). The institutional and organisational space, in turn, involves resources for individuals and groups that can be used in action and, at the same time, defines the conditions (rules) for their use [8]. Such a new area for gaining social capital in the context of the four fields of gathering resources presented above, may be the sphere of the newly understood leisure time, intermingling or closely adjacent to work time in the light of new economic conditions.

The category of social capital is not an explicit notion [17] but it is more and more often used in describing the scheme of norms and rules of the functioning of modern societies. The notion of social capital can be viewed from the micro- (R. Putnam) [18], mezzo- (J. Coleman ) [2] and macrosocial (D. North, M. Olson) [14] perspective. The first allows us – according to Putman’s definition – to isolate the links of trust, loyalty and solidarity expressing themselves in self-organising and self-governing, as well as in creating communities, and in mutual mobilisation for realisation of tasks. Mezzostructural perspective (Coleman) shows social capital as the ability of humans to cooperate within groups and organisations in order to gain common benefits. In the macrostructural approach (North, Olson) the notion of capital includes social and political environment, formalised institutional links and structures, and indicates the significance of legal norms, judiciary system and political authorities.

Therefore, it can be stated that social capital fills in the space among people and has its source in the interactions due to which the links and networks are based on proper, strong foundations of cooperation [12]. It should be remembered that the concept of social capital assumes the benefits derived from its functioning for individuals, organisations or social environment, so the activities based on trust potential, bringing about effects contrary to the commonly accepted social norms, do not constitute the form of social capital. From the viewpoint of factors supporting the formation of relations of social capital, we can distinguish systems more (e.g. structures of relationship or neighborhood, fairly stable in Polish conditions) or less (e.g. communities based on organizations and formal institutions) susceptible to capitalization [7]. Management and utilization of leisure time is also becoming a space in which resources can be gathered, capitalised and released in convenient – from the viewpoint of the realisation of interests of individuals or groups of people – moments.

Such tendencies are especially visible among people from defined social environments characterised by a high degree of awareness about their needs, forms and ways of spending leisure time. This concerns both individual, private needs (taking care of physical condition, health, reduction of stress) and the perception and realisation of “proper“ recreational activities (fashion, desire to adapt to the environment, employers’ requirements, etc). These people are representatives of the newly-formed middle class, described by the sociologists as the foundation of the economic, social and political deal in modern capitalism, and defined by the term ‘knowledge class’[13]. The criteria of belonging to the middle class raise numerous doubts. It is difficult to state unanimously which dimensions of social positions occupied in the hierarchical world by individuals refer to the middle class. The main accepted criteria of belonging include the level of income, lifestyle and work situation [5]. The representatives of the middle class are characterised by a greater autonomy and independence in the workplace than the rest of the society. As far as lifestyle is concerned, one of its elements is also the choice of types of and places for recreation, as well as people with whom recreation is carried out. The fact of spending leisure time in a specified way and in a carefully chosen company is one of the indicators of status and social belonging [15]. This is also often an opportunity, carefully arranged to gather capital resources in the form of proper relations, friendly or simply useful, with people like ourselves. Taking care of such relations has already become a ritual and it occurs in places regarded as recreational, such as fitness clubs, restaurants, sports facilities and others. In the conditions of realising interests and transactions, a well-prepared recreational setting performs a very important function of gathering resources and allowing their use at a convenient time. This fact is appreciated and perceived both in private and corporate activities. So the investments in the sphere of leisure time bring, together with direct profits measurable instantly by the economic effects, also indirect profits, a bit veiled but nonetheless significant in the final balance.