Decentring leisure (1995)

This book explores the meaning of leisure in the context of the key social formations of our time: capitalism, modernity and postmodernity. In the first part, the author describes the relations between capitalism and leisure, the meaning of free time for workers in a capitalist system, and the gendered nature of leisure. He then discusses the social construction of leisure under modernity and the main competing arguments – that it imprisons the individual and reinfoces conformity or that it liberates poeple and releases their creativity. Finally, he examines postmodernity, the cultural condition which has radically changed the idea of leisure. Revealing how leisure practices have responded to living in a risk society, he shows that ‘free’ time becomes something very different when simulation and nostalgia lie at the heart of everyday life.