Social isolation: a leisure perspective

ABSTRACT

The feeling of social isolation can be uncomfortable, painful even, and as modernity continues to shift from a period of ‘solidity’ into one of ‘fluidity’ individuals are certain to encounter it more frequently. However, a way of dealing with this circumstance is to view social isolation as something that can be directly embraced and exploited. That is to say, with enough creativity, imagination, and determination social isolation can be reimagined to open up new possibilities of enchantment. With this in mind, this paper focuses on a group of urban explorers who manage to invent themselves through a process of self-creation known as anthropotechnics. What this means is that pursuits such as urban exploration can be used to transform carceral archipelagos of isolation into carceral archipelagos of leisure. In short, these can be understood as occasions where individuals harness an ‘inner chaos’ that is normally contained and controlled in everyday life.

KEYWORDS:

• Social isolation
• leisure
• inner chaos
• urban exploration
• anthropotechnics

Introduction

If present modernity represents an epoch known for its uncertainty, unpredictability and insecurity (Bauman 2000), the year 2020 has certainly served to accentuate this condition. As I write, the world has entered a state of crisis. A virulent disease sweeps across the globe and like a tsunami it appears unstoppable. However, this is a different tsunami to any humanity has experienced previously (for those of us who are used to the normal conditions of the twenty-first century at least). Social order and stability have become unrecognisable not because of destruction, not because buildings lie scattered across broken streets, but because large parts of our towns, cities, and even the far reaches of the countryside are deserted. It is an eerie silence that brings with it a strange sense of chaos, and it is strange because the chaos surrounding us is almost invisible. The only telling signs that something is wrong are the deep scars which are already forming as dust grows thicker on the doorsteps of empty pubs, theatres and shops. There is also the reality that many of us have been unable to see friends and family for several months or more, or even venture very far from our homes. With no way of knowing when normality will return, one of the things at the forefront of all our minds is our present state of confinement and the raging feeling of social isolation it incites.

Given that the idea of isolation is a matter of great significance for many of us at this moment, the central aim of this paper is to think about how experiences of social isolation might be interpreted in ‘liquid’ modernity, but also how they might be reimagined. Before I continue any further, however, it is important to make it clear from the offset that the theme of social isolation is obviously not a new idea; it is not a phenomenon exclusive to the twenty-first century. As Hannah Arendt (1972) points out, isolation and loneliness have always had a profound effect on human lives and ideas of belonging, community and connection. As a result, the idea has been given much scholarly and literary attention over the years. For instance, when I start to think of social isolation I am immediately drawn to historical examples of exclusion and segregation. To begin with, I might turn the reader’s attention to those unfortunate souls who, long before the onset of the modern era, were carriers of leprosy. These were people who instantly became social outcasts, and due to negative stigma and speculation, they were usually expelled from the protective walls of medieval towns and cities (Rawcliffe 2009).

What also springs to mind when I think of social isolation are the many centuries of horrifying atrocities committed against so-called ‘inferior’ beings. Hundreds of years of ghettos, pogroms, detention camps and so on, many of them linked to ethnic and religious differences, reveal an even darker side to social isolation. What each of these examples uncover are the extreme measures of regulation that have at some point in history been designed to restrict or completely remove the freedom of others (Jefferson, Turner, and Jensen 2020). And then of course there are those definitively modern institutions of confinement: the asylum, the penitentiary, the institute of ‘reformation’ (Foucault 1977). Although the purpose of these institutions was often very different to the purpose of a ghetto, those who found themselves incarcerated were no doubt left feeling alone and with an intimate sense of abandonment. Even if the asylum was intended to provide a means of restoring the so-called insane back into society, they first had to isolate people from the gaze of the outside world, remove their identities, and take away rights to freedom for the sake of therapeutic rehabilitation (Camp 2010).

In terms of the field of Leisure Studies, although the theme of social isolation has garnered much less attention relative to other disciplines (Glover 2018), there are scholars who have given it some thought. To outline a few, Pedlar et al. (2018) have examined issues facing women as they begin the process of re-entering society after a period of incarceration; Outley and Floyd (2010) have studied inner city youths and their access to leisure experiences in socially isolated neighbourhoods; Mulcahy, Parry and Glover (2010) have explored motherhood and the idea of exclusion and conformity in play groups; and Toepoel (2013) has investigated how leisure can reduce loneliness and improve social connectedness among elderly populations. There are certainly more examples I could draw on, but these works are not what I want to explore in this paper. Instead, as a critical observation, what I want to highlight is that what appears to connect every single one of the above-mentioned interpretations are ideas of separation and a-lack-of, and thoughts of removal or escape. Whether the focus is centred on freedom, social connectivity, or different spheres of thought and perception, the common link between most interpretations of social isolation in Leisure Studies and indeed other disciplines is the suggestion that it often brings about detrimental outcomes and consequences.

With this in mind, what I want to argue in this paper is that some experiences of social isolation can be different in present modernity. Instead of signifying loss, segregation, or a state of total loneliness, what I want to draw attention to is the idea that an experience of social isolation can be turned into a unique leisure experience that is pleasurable. It is against this background that this paper provides something of a nuanced interpretation of social isolation by reflecting on a lived experience of segregation and seclusion that took place in a world that cannot help but be driven by technology, private desires and idiosyncrasy (Bauman 2000). That is to say, this paper invites the reader to embark on a journey together with a group of urban explorers¹ that will reveal how traditional ideas of social isolation have transformed for ‘liquid’ modern individuals who frequently embrace the uncertainty, changeability and insecurity of twenty-first century life. In a nutshell, this paper offers glimmers of hope and enchantment in a time when many people desperately want something good to happen or be true.

In many ways, then, the present study might be understood as also being in line with other studies that have looked for enchantment in acts of ‘solitary leisure’. Some examples might include individual pursuits such as solo hiking experiences (Coble, Selin, and Erickson 2003), watching pornographic films and masturbating (Rowland et al. 2020), or gambling for fun using machines in casinos (Reith 1999). Other examples of collective solitude might be closely linked as well: certain voyeur activities such as dogging (Byrne 2006), joining a motorcycling ‘community’ to feel alone but retain a desired sense of comradeship (Broughton and Walker 2009), or becoming immersed in a virtual world alongside faceless others from the comfort and safety of home (Crawford 2012). In other words, there is a broad history of ‘solitary leisure’ that overlaps with the present study and it should be acknowledged for it also examines the different ways in which people take advantage of situations that involve being isolated. That being said, there is still plenty of room for further investigation of social isolation, in particular how the problem of disenchantment might be reimagined, and this is the direction this paper takes.

However, before the reader begins the next section, I first want to provide a brief outline that makes it clear how this study was conducted. The fieldwork I draw on is part of my own independent ethnographic research. It took place in the Autumn of 2019, alongside members of an urban exploration group known as WildBoyz. As I have explained elsewhere, I have known the group for many years (see Bingham 2020). They were also the participants for my doctoral thesis which unpacks heterotopic social space. In the true spirit of immersive enquiry, I have gathered this present research as a ‘cultural intermediary’ to provide a gateway between the idealistic, theoretical world of Leisure Studies and the realistic world of leisure practitioners (Blackshaw 2003). In terms of chronicling events, I have produced ‘thick descriptions’ to help the reader feel as though they are an insider experiencing the vividness and intensity of the social world under investigation (Geertz 1973). With this in mind, it is time now to engage with the first part of the narrative episode I have provided.

Entering tempestuous waters

Dark clouds were rolling in, sweeping towards us across Edinburgh City like black smoke. With spots of rain already in the air and the wind beginning to pick up, all four of us were wondering whether we should abandon our plan. A murky stretch of sea lay between us and a small uninhabited island five kilometres out and right now the water looked especially wild and hostile. Almost as if it were breathing the water seemed to rise and fall, but it followed no apparent rhythm as large grey waves churned violently. Nevertheless, we continued to pile our supplies into our inflatable vessel. We did so in silence. Although we were all thinking it, no one wanted to be the first to suggest we should bail.

With all the gear loaded into the boat, we turned our attention to the engine. Box yelled for MKD to bring it over since he was stood right next to it but there was no reply. He was busy texting some ‘lass’ he was interested in. Box repeated himself: ‘Dude, bring the engine over … Dude! We need the engine!’ MKD still didn’t bother to respond, or even look up, instead, he continued to stare at his phone. Box called again and waited, but in the end, he gave up and fetched the engine himself. With the help of myself and Mayhem, he hauled it into position at the stern and set about fastening the bolts to keep it firmly in place. Several minutes later and we were ready to embark, so we pushed the boat fully into the water and called for MKD to join us. Once again, he didn’t seem to hear us. He was busy laughing at a message he’d just received from his mystery ‘lass’. Growing agitated now, Mayhem shouted at him: ‘Stop fannying on on yer phone, man. Get into the boat, we’re fuckin’ ready to go!’ MKD responded: ‘Yer, yer, I’m cummin, just let me send this last message yer fuckin’ slut bag’.

The crossing started out well. We set off just as a break in the storm occurred, and for the first 20-min of the voyage the sea was calm as sunshine managed to break through the clouds. With improved conditions and our two-stroke outboard engine chugging away steadily, we were making excellent progress. Our progress was so good in fact, Mayhem decided he had plenty of time to update his Instagram account. He asked me to unpack his phone from a drybag and take a few snaps of him posing as he steered the rudder. He seated himself in such a way that he looked analogous to a captain gazing out toward the open sea ahead of him. The land in the background was far enough away to suggest he was sailing off into a vast ocean. Comfortable in his performativity, especially after he started to received likes and favourable comments in response to his photos, he began to drop random maritime terminology into conversation: ‘helm hard to starboard, boys’, ‘only a few nautical miles to go’, ‘Jeezus, Mother Carey’s chickens, man’, ‘up on main deck there, how’s it goin?’. Noticing the change of character, Box eventually turned to him and said, ‘who do you think you are, dude, bloody captain Cook?’ Mayhem nodded his head once and replied, ‘whey aye, man. I’ve got explorer’s blood in these veins, lad’.

However, just as Mayhem was getting into the swing of things the storm reappeared in all its destructive fury. Once again, dark clouds began rolling towards us and the wind picked up. Without warning, the waves began to grow larger and larger and we feared we would take on too much water as they sucked us deep into their swells. The air around us became thick with a briny mist as waves crashed down hard against the sides of the boat. Unable to escape, we leaned deeper into the vessel and began to cling on out of sheer desperation. With each battering, the storm continued to grow worse, until the waves reached the point that they seemed to tower above us. They would rise up high with anger and rage in them, always slow enough for us to feel blind panic but fast enough to leave us with no time to physically react. These waves threatened to swallow us whole as they crashed over the top of the boat. At this stage, a couple of ‘the Boyz’ turned to bailing out water, but I couldn’t see who for my vision was too skewed by sea spray and thick droplets of rain.

After an hour of battling against the storm, the island finally came into view. Over the sound of waves crashing against our boat, we could hear thrashing water roar as it pounded the rocky shoreline. Our aim had been to reach the old concrete harbour on the west side of the island, but we no longer had the luxury of choice. Having taken a heavy battering our engine was spluttering, and Mayhem was struggling to keep it running. He shouted something to us, but we couldn’t hear him. Looking back, I think he was warning us that we were going to maintain our course and head straight towards the rocks. As it turned out, it didn’t matter anyway. Before he could finish his sentence the engine began to cough even more feebly until it stopped altogether.

Fortunately, we were close enough to the island for the tide to take hold of us and it started to drag us towards the shoreline. However, several moments later we found ourselves trapped between two jagged rocks. As we ground to a halt, water swept over the side of the boat and it began carrying away some of our supplies. Reacting quickly, Mayhem jumped out to save them. As he launched himself into the churning water, he yelled ‘abandon ship!’ Following the ‘Captain’s’ orders, the rest of us gabbed whatever bag or item was lying nearby before jumping overboard ourselves. The water was icy cold, and the rocks sharp and slippery. We struggled to keep our balance as we dragged ourselves from the sea. None of us dared stop, not until we could collapse in the safety of the nearest patch of grass.

An hour later, having lugged our gear to the centre of the island where there was a large, abandoned house, we started to assess the situation. Although most of our supplies had been rescued, including most of the food and beer which we were very pleased about, we no longer had an engine nor a fully functioning boat. To make matters worse, at some point between carrying our equipment from the beach to the derelict house, Mayhem had managed to drop the drybag containing all our phones. With no reliable means of transport, and no method of communicating with the outside world, it suddenly dawned on us that we were stranded on an overgrown, uninhabited island.

Almost immediately, feelings of isolation set in. We didn’t necessarily feel lonely, for we were in the company of one another, but we did feel completely disconnected from the mainland. Although we could still see the Scottish coastline on the horizon, never before had we felt so far away from civilization. Looking particularly anxious, I noticed MKD would regularly pat his trousers as though he was searching for his phone. Every now and then he would make a comment about the lass he’d been messaging as well, remarks such as: ‘Man, we’d betta find these fuckin’ fones, like. [Name omitted] is gonna think I’m igonirin’ er. I just needa send ‘er a message’. The more he thought about not having his phone, the more agitated he became. He turned to Mayhem to remind him that he was to blame: ‘Fuck sakes, man! We’re neva gonna find the fuckin’ fones are we, not in all that overgrown shit out there. Fuckin’ bag-ead’.

Mayhem seemed to act in a similar dispirited manner; cut off from updating his Instagram account, he appeared to lose his explorer identity. At one point, shortly after giving up our search for the phones, myself and Box suggested we go and explore the rest of the island. We were particularly keen to take a look at the underground tunnels that were part of the old military fortifications built between 1881 and 1940, but he seemed uninterested. Lying flat on his damp sleeping bag he mumbled sullenly: ‘No point is ther, not like we can show people what we’re doin’. I think it’s time to retire from this explorin’ shit. It’s not the same wen yer can’t show people what we’re doin is it? Yer get me, fam? Go on without me, I can’t be fucked. I’ll set up camp here instead with MKD’. As we turned to leave the room, I overheard him mutter that we looked more like a ‘bunch of fuckin’ homeless cunts’ bedding down in a rat-ridden farmhouse rather than urbexers.

On evolution: understanding isolation in present modernity

Keeping in mind the above episode, this section of the paper begins by highlighting a problem. The problem is that there are some theorists who might argue that what ‘the Boyz’ experienced was not really social isolation at all. If we turn our attention to Hannah Arendt, for example, a philosopher and political theorist who was certainly no stranger to dark and unpredictable times, the above episode might be viewed entirely differently.

Following Arendt’s first major text, The Origins of Totalitarianism, it seems likely she would argue that ‘the Boyz’ did not experience isolation because it is viewed as something that occurs outside the company of others and the self (freedom on the other hand involves acting in concert with others and the self). In other words, to be socially isolated in an Arendtian sense is to enter a situation where it is impossible to act together in a task, and where there is a noticeable lack of distraction (Arendt 1972). Tasks are completed independently, and only for the sake of being completed. In this sense, isolation represents a direct threat to ideas of freedom and belonging since it lacks meaning and this is something that can quickly become unbearable (Arendt 1972). As Arendt argues, what sometimes happens (but not always) is that isolation can bring about the subsequent nightmare of loneliness, when it deprives a person of a meaningful place in the world and causes the feeling of being utterly alone. What this tells us, then, is that because ‘the Boyz’ were together the entire time, and clearly willing to communicate and act together, they could not have slipped into a state of isolation or loneliness. As the reader observed, they were constantly in a dialogue with one another and in a situation overflowing with distraction. In other words, Arendt’s (1972) interpretation of social isolation does not quite fit when it is applied to the situation ‘the Boyz’ found themselves in.

In view of this, it might be useful to look at the third component of the triumvirate that was at the heart of all Arendt’s (1972) thinking. That is to say, it might be suggested that the wrong theme is being examined and what I should be investigating is an instance of solitude rather than isolation. This, however, is also unlikely since Arendt would almost certainly have argued that what ‘the Boyz’ experienced could not have been solitude either. Although solitude is said to be a mode of being people enter when they think, and a sure way of escaping loneliness, it is viewed as a state of being alone with oneself. As she suggests, the practice of solitude is a creative activity that causes a person to have a silent dialogue with themselves, enabling them to regain a sense of meaning, belonging and freedom in their lives. In other words, you can never be lonely or isolated in solitude because it is a means of cultivating a close friendship with our deepest, innermost selves. The problem, however, vis-à-vis ‘the Boyz’ is that none of them seemed particularly interested in consciously cultivating a private space of solitary contemplation. As the reader will discover later in the paper, what went through the minds of Mayhem, MKD and Box was how to make the best out of an otherwise bad situation. In other words, whatever solitude ‘the Boyz’ experienced it was infused with a Dionysian spirit of subversion, and it required a gathering of likeminded others to celebrate difference and plurality.

What the discussion appears to intimate at this present juncture, then, is that neither the concept of isolation nor solitude seem to encapsulate what it is ‘the Boyz’ experienced in the time they were stranded on an uninhabited island. Nevertheless, this is not what is being suggested. As Zygmunt Bauman (2007) argues, social isolation and loneliness are two things that have certainly not disappeared in ‘liquid’ modernity. Instead, they have taken on new meaning as they have evolved in line with the expansion of consumer culture and new information and communication technologies (Bauman 2007). In other words, while Arendt was an astute observer of the twentieth century, she could not have anticipated how life would be different in the twenty-first century.

As Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (2001) point out, individualization – a term that has become the defining characteristic of modernity – brings with it certain consequences and one of those is that the risk of experiencing social isolation has grown exponentially. What is more, the immediacy of it occurring is also said to have risen dramatically (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001). Of course, this perhaps seems strange in an epoch founded on increased connectivity, mass digitalization and easier to access networks (Turkle 1995). However, as Bauman (in Bauman and Raud 2015) reminds us, the technologies involved are both a blessing and a curse rolled into one. The blessing is that there is always someone eagerly waiting to receive an electronic message (Bauman and Raud 2015). Indeed, MKD demonstrated this when he decided to contact a ‘lass’ he was interested in as we waited for the tide to turn before launching the boat. As the reader saw, instead of helping to prepare the equipment and engine MKD left the rest of us to do the hard work so he could keep up with the stream of messages he was receiving.

It might also be argued that in present modernity there is always the prospect of being noticed and gaining the proverbial 15-min of fame most people desire no matter where you are (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015). As Mayhem revealed, it only took a few seconds to upload a photograph to Instagram and for the world to know, in his mind at least, that he was an epic explorer ready to embark on a great voyage into the unknown. In other words, Mayhem did not feel socially isolated at all as he decided to fully embrace the performativity of the moment with his followers. In fact, he felt more connected to the world than ever as a steady stream of likes reinforced his impression that he is a noticeable, exciting individual. With this example in mind then, we might consider Levy’s (1997) suggestion that advances in technology signify how humanity is moving from one version of itself into a more hopeful alternative founded on connectivity and ‘collective intelligence’. As Levy argues, collective intelligence is ‘a form of universally distributed intelligence’ that enriches people as they come closer together to share ideas, skills and abilities (Levy 1997, 9).

On the flip side, however, there is the curse of technology, and this brings the focus of the discussion to the unsettling side of the evolution of social isolation. Beneath the surface of apparent connectedness, there is something toxic and destructive about the increased comfort, convenience and freedom it carries (Turkle 2011). People come to expect immediacy and when things (a response to a text message or an email, for example) suddenly take a little while longer they cause intense feelings of anxiety and frustration, and a sense that commitments are too complex and overwhelming to manage in present modernity (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015). MKD is a good example here, for although he was surrounded by ‘the Boyz’ – a group of mates he has known most of his life – while he was on the island he was overcome by the fear of disconnection. As he mumbled while we were setting up camp in the abandoned house: ‘Man, we’d betta find these fuckin’ fones, like. [Name omitted] is gonna think I’m igonirin’ er. I just need ter send er a message’. Straightaway this reminded MKD he was supposed to phone a mate as well, and this caused him further anxiety as he began to worry his friend would think he had ‘pied him off’ and would want nothing more to do with him in the future.

What this brief analysis emphasizes is that isolation in the twenty-first century depends less on our physical distance from one another and more on the availability of communications technology (Turkle 2011). Without his portal to the outside world, it was obvious as he sulked that MKD instantly felt much more alone, worried and socially isolated than he normally would with his phone firmly in his hands.

In addition to struggling with the lack of immediacy, people also seem to lose their motivation and confidence all too easily in a world of increased communication and information as their identities seem to disintegrate the moment connections are severed (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015). To expand on this point, soon after landing on the island Mayhem was no longer inspired by his performativity. Unable to carry on the theatricality, based on his awareness he had no one to share it with other than ‘the Boyz’, Mayhem lost all sense of being an ‘epic explorer’. Instead, he described how he was feeling ‘homeless and dirty’ and very ‘far away from the world’ because part of him had disappeared. In reality, the world was still clearly visible from the island, but because he was virtually and performatively disconnected from it a burning sense of social isolation stirred inside him. What this reinforces then, in line with MKD’s behaviour, is that living with technology in the twenty-first century actually causes increased feelings of isolation, especially when it is taken away unexpectedly. After all, this is a world where technology forces people to depend more on social connections that are loose, flexible and performative, as opposed to those that feel more secure and stable (Turkle 2011).

Keeping these last observations in mind but steering the discussion from technology towards the broader picture of present modernity, it can be suggested that what increased individualization supports all the same is emancipation, and greater feelings of meaning and belonging. That is, despite the sighted flaws of technology individualization still allows people to break free of prescribed identities, or forms of ‘social definition’ to borrow Bauman’s (2001) way of putting it, which at one time involved learning how to fit in. To paraphrase Christopher Lasch (1985), thanks to the pervasive reach of consumerism and the market-mediated modes of living people follow identities are now something that can be adopted and dispensed with just as easily as changing an outfit; they can be chosen at will and require very little commitment while they are being worn. To put it another way, if at one time the task of identity building involved being part of a stable community which functions according to its own rules and traditions, in present modernity the task of living for most people has changed shape dramatically to suit the needs of consumers (Bauman 2001). Now it involves being fluid and flexible with Others who are equally as heterogeneous. In this sense, it could be argued that ‘the Boyz’ should be better prepared when it comes to avoiding social isolation because as twenty-first century beings they are used to jumping between loose social formations.

The problem, however, as Bauman (2001) suggests, is that an unintended consequence of this all-embracing consumer driven event is that people have become more like vagabonds (people who are forced to wander from place to place because they have no settled home). This is another way of suggesting that they are forever wondering which direction they should go. In other words, people share the same anxieties felt by vagabonds in that they never feel able to reach their destination because they do not know what it looks like (Bauman 2000). Unsure how to get there, or even where they are supposed to begin, feelings of social isolation and loneliness often emerge in all their fire and fury. People who are part of a community on the other hand rarely experience such things. While they may certainly long for change or some relief from their traditions from time to time, the sureness of ‘community’ gives them a secure sense of place and purpose in the world, and most importantly immunity from isolation and loneliness (Blackshaw 2010).

What all this points to then, as Hortulanus and Machielse (2006) argue, is that social isolation has become a more prominent feature of life in present modernity, one that is impossible to avoid. Of course, it was almost certainly an unavoidable part of the world Arendt found herself in as well, but the crucial point is that it has taken on new meaning in the twenty-first century. In the present world people have to learn to deal with the fact that they will inevitably encounter a multiplicity of unstable social situations and experiences over the course of their lives. Thus, with fewer people to rely on and less certainty as universalizing systems and grand narratives, political or otherwise, have collapsed, new strategies are needed to keep the rising threat of social isolation under control. One of these strategies, as I will go on to argue in the remainder of this paper, is to tackle the problem head on by viewing social isolation as something that can be directly embraced and exploited. That is to say, with enough imagination, creativity and determination social isolation can be reinterpreted to open up new possibilities of enchantment.

Carceral archipelagos of isolation (and leisure)

Before I continue, because my understanding of social isolation is not a usual one, I realize it is important to make my interpretation more clear-cut. On the surface, it might seem accurate to suggest that what is being envisioned in this paper is an interpretation of Max Weber’s (1930) ‘iron cage’, or something to this effect. That is, ‘the Boyz’ appear to be trapped in an enclosed system of control and order that has evolved in line with the growth of consumerism and individualization (Ritzer 2010). A direct consequence of this capitalist-driven event is that modernity has become a disenchanted world that lacks meaning and creativity, and without sufficient meaning, we could speculate that it provides the ideal conditions for breeding social isolation and those associated feelings of loneliness and insecurity.

However, this would be an inaccurate description of what actually takes place and it is one this paper sets out to distance itself from. For a start, what Weber (1930) was referring to when he coined this metaphor was a vision of a world striving to become rationalized. Yet, as the reader will likely agree, the world ‘the Boyz’ find themselves in is far from a rational one. As Bauman (2000) reminds us, ‘liquid’ modernity is about impulsiveness, irrationality and perversion; it is praxeomorphic in that it is shaped by the know-how of the day, and the know-how and logic of the contemporary world is not the same as it was in the ‘solid’ modern era.² Secondly, what Weber (1930) emphasizes is that when people are tightly bound by an ‘iron cage’ of rationality, the world becomes unavoidably gloomy and disenchanted. Yet, as the narrative episode continues in the next section the reader will see this is not the sort of world ‘the Boyz’ experienced first-hand. Instead, they demonstrate that they are able to focus on the freedoms and opportunities that surround them. In other words, while Weber (1930) assumes people are passive and incapable of seeking alternative conditions to those they inadvertently find themselves in, the reality is they are actually capable of shaking off shackles and chains.

With these observations in mind, I would like to argue that it is Michel Foucault’s (1977) concept of carceral archipelagos³ that comes closer to conveying a better interpretation of ‘the Boyz’ experience of social isolation. This metaphor communicates a view of isolation that is freer and more open because it lays emphasis on individual systems of control that are all relatively independent and separated by open ‘seas’ rather than an overarching cage. Nevertheless, it is important to make it immediately clear that Foucault’s (1977) idea of the carceral archipelago is still an inadequate metaphor for understanding ‘the Boyz’ situation, and indeed wider society in general, unless it is adapted for understanding present modernity. Even Foucault himself realized this and in his later work, we observe a shift in his thinking from locked, systematic systems of control and discipline to the concept of governmentality whereby people police themselves according to processes of normalization and self-evident truths.

Therefore, the carceral archipelagos I have in mind still involve segregation, lack of connection and loneliness, but they only feel prison-like for a short while. What this means is that in the twenty-first century carceral archipelagos can be viewed as being a multiplicity of temporary instances of social isolation that are experienced as a result of increased individual freedom. To explain this point more clearly, according to Bauman (2007) ‘liquid’ modernity provides greater freedom but this inevitably comes with an increasing number of social consequences because it is not something that provides stability. As Bauman suggests, freedom increases ambivalence and contingency and people cannot help but feel more unsafe, insecure and uncertain about themselves and the world around them. In the end, the only thing that is certain is that people will experience a variety of events that make them feel isolated and disconnected from the world. What is important and what matters, then, regardless of why they feel isolated, whether it is because they have lost their phones, their sense of performativity, moments of face-to-face contact, or simply because they feel temporarily nostalgic for a better past, is how people embrace their encounters with social isolation. On the one level, they can be viewed as being carceral, but on the other they can be harnessed in creative ways and used as interesting means of finding leisure.

To explain my point more clearly, we can turn our attention to what Peter Sloterdijk (2013) refers to as anthropotechnics (the idea that human beings are self-forming). As Sloterdijk puts it, anthropotechnics can be defined as a process of self-creation that treats human nature (identities and networks of shared cognitive, aesthetic and moral experience) as something that can be deliberately and purposefully manipulated. It is a way of celebrating the capacity of individuals to become inimitable, incomparable and original as they extend their responsibility for their own lives. In other words, what is being offered here is a means of grasping how experiences of social isolation can be reimagined and thought of as being sources of enchantment in the twenty-first century. In line with the arguments that have been made so far in this paper, what Sloterdijk (2013) argues is that although people have experimented with new forms of life across many centuries, it is in present modernity where they come to realize they can determine their own worlds without them being regulated by strict political, cultural or economic parameters. What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ are free to become ‘acrobats’, to borrow a metaphor coined by Sloterdijk, providing they are willing to engage in anthropotechnics and the labour of self-shaping.

Following in footsteps laid out by Friedrich Nietzsche (1969) who argued that since the death of God individuals must become who they are by gradually cultivating themselves, Sloterdijk (2013) provides a contemporary understanding of the view that freedom is not simply handed down by a higher power or some mysterious figure. Of course, the problem remains that many human beings still like having a sense of ‘verticality from above’ and a sense of direction because it provides dependable feelings of safety and security at times when both are most needed (Sloterdijk 2013, 86). In this regard, what has replaced religion are new marketized kinds of discipline that attempt to fulfil the human need for tradition, moral guidance and spiritual regimen. However, what Sloterdijk (2013) attempts to do in his search for freedom is highlight an essential dichotomy that allows us to distinguish between conformists and non-conformists. As Sloterdijk (2013) suggests, there are those who would rather remain stood in the relative safety of ‘base camp’, the ‘conformists of being different’ as he refers to them, and there are those who are concerned with life practice and experimentation. Once people realize this, it is up to them to make a choice.

Thinking back to the episode above, it would have been all too easy for ‘the Boyz’ to view their circumstance – their temporary carceral archipelago – as an isolating event. If they had been inhabitants of the ‘human zoo’ they would have perceived the environment around them as one lacking stimulation and connection, and they would quickly have succumbed to lethargy (Sloterdijk 2013). As habitus-controlled agents ‘the Boyz’ would have been compelled to act according to habits, namely the doxa already present in them (Bourdieu 1984), and pushing seemingly irrelevant passions aside they would have been unable to think beyond how to escape the island. With a broken engine, a damaged boat, and no means of communicating with the outside world, it is certain that the situation would have seemed next to hopeless and overwhelmingly isolating. However, what I want to argue is that ‘the Boyz’ are not creatures of inertia, they are not content with the proclamation that ‘the reality of [their] being is guaranteed by the sum of things that possess [them]’ (Sloterdijk 2013, 188). In other words, ‘the Boyz’ realize that ‘freedom does not await the arrival of some kind of external liberator’, they understand it is available at every moment to individuals who are willing to invent themselves (Blackshaw 2017, 107).

As individuals who can make something of an experience of social isolation, it is the art of living that is important to ‘the Boyz’. Dissatisfied with ideas of separation and a-lack-of, what they have discovered instead is that leisure (a form of urban exploration in this instance) is a primary sphere of anthropotechnics that can be used to restructure certain situations and conditions (Blackshaw 2017), especially those that might be described as being a carceral archipelago. What this suggests is that leisure can be an indication of acrobatic success as it is used as a means of drifting between different performative states and living in creative ways. An evident problem of course, as Blackshaw (2017) reminds us, is that people cannot know ahead of time the consequences or the value of their actions, all they can do is take a risk and follow the moment to see where it leads. For Agnus Heller (1996), this might be referred to as taking an existential leap into our own destinies, those we have chosen ourselves. To put an ‘urbex’ spin on things, anthropotechnics is not unlike a torch being firmly gripped as the twisting passages of an underground network are explored for the first time. Anthropotechnics facilitates the creative imagination, it pushes people to pursue the task of self-design and realization, and in turn allows them to live their lives as fully as possible.

Into the fire: reckless and so hungered

By the time me and Box returned to the rundown house, MKD and Mayhem both seemed much more cheerful. While we’d been exploring the island, they’d managed to construct a washing line to dry off gear, board up some of the paneless windows to keep the wind and rain at bay, and cover the floor with some clean wooden panels they’d found in a back room. In the far corner, MKD was finishing off cleaning out the fireplace with a makeshift spade, and to my right Mayhem was neatly arranging tins on a warped shelf. He’d managed to put together a makeshift pantry and it was overflowing with food and beer. Once the pair finished up, they wandered over to a set of chairs they’d placed in the centre of the room and each took a seat. Box and I crossed the room to join them. As we sat down, Mayhem spoke:

Mayhem: Reet, lads. Since wor heor te stay we decided we might as well make the most of it. The camp is sorted, so now we just hev to hev a fuckin’ good time.

Kev: Shouldn’t we start looking for the phones again?

Mayhem: Mmm. Later, dude. If ther on the island, ther not gannin’ anywhere, are they?

Kev: Aye, I guess not.

Box: Besides, the sun’s goin’ down, dude.

Mayhem: Reet. Listen up. [Pause]. Let’s go fuckin’ mental.

MKD: Yer, man! Ne point feelin’ sorry for ourselves, is there.

Box: [Grinning wildly]. What you thinking?

Mayhem: Let’s crack the bevvies. [Pause]. Weor did you guys say those tunnels were?

Gearing up for what was going to be an ‘epic’ night, we decided first to eat. A pair of gas stoves were lit, and we set about putting together a feast consisting of tinned food, pasta, cereal bars and cake. With all our worries seemingly forgotten, the atmosphere was much more carefree. Instead of sulking about our circumstances, we laughed and joked as food and beer were passed around.

By 9:00pm, having sunk back the last remnants of a keg, we decided it was time to head over to the tunnels before we started to drink more heavily. Everyone set about grabbing what they thought would be needed. MKD tucked two bottles of whisky inside his trouser pockets and filled his arms with all the beer he could carry. Box plucked a ‘bog roll’ and a stash of fireworks from his rucksack. I grabbed a few more beers. And Mayhem mounted his speaker onto his shoulder. Looking like a right motley crew and feeling like explorers once again, we set off across the island with Duran Duran’s Wild Boys blasting at full volume. We didn’t have to worry about pissing off any locals out here, there were no limits to what we could do. We passed several abandoned buildings on the way but ignored them all. The only thing at the forefront of our minds was a large, overgrown military instalment at the southern end of the island.

After walking for 10-min, we followed Box as he headed down an old concrete ramp. The route seemed almost unpassable as we pushed our way through dense bushes and long grass. At the end, we reached a doorway and entered it. There were several directions we could have taken, but Box immediately chose a staircase to our right. The steps were covered in rabbit bones which crunched loudly as we descended deeper into the bunker. At the bottom, an unpleasant odour ran deep into our nostrils – the sickly stench of rot. The smell seemed to be emanating from several semi-juicy bird carcasses lying at the bottom of the steps. Moving quickly past them, we proceeded around a corner. From here, we continued to follow a damp passage until Box took a left. One by one we entered a large brick-lined chamber. It had obviously been whitewashed at some point in its service, but now patches of red were breaking through. Box wandered over to a wooden bench positioned against the far wall and looked back towards the rest of us. ‘What d’ya reckon? I think this’ll do nicely’. The rest of us nodded as we began to set down our gear on other benches that were randomly scattered around the room.

With Mayhem’s speaker positioned at the back of the chamber, flashing torches placed in the corners, and our bevvies placed neatly along one of the benches, it was time to ‘go mental’. Mayhem fiddled with a few dials on the sound system and the rapid beat of psytrance suddenly began to fill the room. He grabbed an open bottle of beer and moved onto the dance floor. Weaving clumsily, he began his performance of the ‘Chernobyl child’.⁴ Aware that a powerful sense of ecstasy was growing, MKD grinned wildly before beginning his own mad version of an Irish river dance. His upper body remained perfectly straight while his legs wildly jigged and stomped. Feeling the surging excitement in the air, Box yelled ‘Yeeeii, boy!’ before raising his arm to begin his legendary ‘ping-pong move’. Just as the deep bass increased in tempo, he entered a volley by waving a drooping hand rapidly from left to right. As he did, he let his head flop forward to join the frantic motion of his body.

Together, ‘the Boyz’ danced – if you could call it that. Completely uninhibited, they felt spectacular, paradisiac even, and the brick chamber began to take on an entirely new form. An ineffable energetic force took hold, reconnecting everyone in the room to the pulsating spirit of enchantment. Inebriated on the intensity of the moment, ‘the Boyz’ suddenly felt alive, more alive than they’d felt in a long time. They felt the call of an inner chaos as the fire within them grew more intense, until finally it erupted. And when it did, it consumed every inch of the old, whitewashed room.

Playing with inner chaos

In terms of thinking about leisure as a sphere of anthropotechnics and how carceral archipelagos of isolation might be reimagined, it is worth thinking about the phenomenon of play. As Johan Huizinga (1971) argues, play has the power to turn the surrounding world into a playground, and it enables people to find pleasure under almost any circumstances. As Nietzsche famously declared, there is little else against the emptiness and certain nothingness of our world which serves such an important purpose as play (Deleuze 2006). In other words, play – that seemingly rudimentary thing that happens to be older than culture itself – is at the heart of anthropotechnics for ‘the Boyz’ and it allows them to reimagine and reinvent certain situations, including those involving social isolation. Nonetheless, and notwithstanding the fact that some forms of play are tied to various cultures and traditions (Huizinga 1971), the idea of play I have in mind is that which is unconcerned about self-preservation, rational or functional purpose, health or even freedom. The sort of play we need to think about to understand carceral archipelagos of leisure promises to deliver a dream order of things that ‘enables, empowers, [and] comes complete with the knowledge of how to go on’ (Bauman 1993, 172). This is play that allows individuals to harness the power of ‘inner chaos’, transforming it from something that would destroy into something that incites raw pleasure and excitement.

Under normal circumstances, some kind of order (cosmos) needs to be imposed on inner chaos (consumer capitalism seems to do in most cases in present modernity). As Jeffery Bell (2006) points out, its indeterminacy and destructive power can easily threaten to destabilize order so it must be contained and controlled from a young age, when it is wild and uninhibited but also very malleable. For Nietzsche (1974), imposing order initially is necessary for the survival of modernity and without it, the chaos inside people would wreak havoc on everything that is familiar and prevent individuals from getting on with their lives. However, inner chaos does not magically disappear just because it has been controlled and marked as being something fundamentally bad. What happens, according to Nietzsche, is that the controlling of chaos gives some people the knowledge and occasional strength to peer ‘into the chaos and labyrinth of existence’ without it needing to be diluted and managed, and it allows them to approach it without fear of perishing as a victim of total disorder (1974, 254). To paraphrase Nietzsche, there are many antidotes in present modernity that can help prevent people falling victim to its consequences as they have come to realize that negotiating ‘the edge of chaos’ requires both stability and deterritorialising flows. After all, there are few people who actually wish to slip into a state of disordered nonsense or anarchical relativism (Bell 2006).

For Nietzsche (1974), playfulness is one of the strategies human beings can adopt to prevent themselves from becoming a victim of chaos. Playfulness is a way of harnessing inner chaos, using it to transform experiences, carceral experiences, for example, into instances of joy that might seem somewhat childlike to an outsider because they are spontaneous, autotelic, creative and groundless. What this means, nonetheless, is that ‘one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star’ (Nietzsche 1969, 46). That is to say, people must not try to dismiss inner chaos when it is felt, they should embrace it to explore and invent new ideas, things and perceptions. For Sloterdijk (2013) this is the true voice of anthropotechnics, it is the discovery of ‘sublime chaos’ that tears people open as they discover what the art of living can really entail.

To make things clear, what is being considered here is not chaos in the everyday sense, it has nothing to do with the uncertainty and unpredictability of living in ‘liquid’ modernity, it is being treated in the sense that it is an internal resource found within human beings (Sloterdijk 2017). Only from this perspective can ideas of creativity take on new meanings. As Sloterdijk suggests, normally the term ‘creation’ is used to imply that something is good and that something productive will result, however, the point of discovering inner chaos is to move beyond such ideas of progress and expectation. To view chaos as an internal resource is to rethink creation and move towards ‘a little bit of evil and a little bit of untidy, a little bit of unpredictable’ because this helps transform the task of living into the art of living (Sloterdijk 2017, 251).

To return to the idea of a carceral archipelago of leisure, it can be argued that each one represents an occasion where individuals can embrace their inner chaos to enjoy instances of social isolation. That is, by standing together shoulder to shoulder with likeminded others who have embraced it as well, ‘the Boyz’ find they can experiment and play with identities and space in ways that seem less possible in the everyday world. Temporarily suspended in a carceral environment – a moment where normal time has little or no relevance or importance – things can be rewired, and their functions altered. However, the sort of play being referred to here only occurs singularly as an unrepeatable event, and all energies and resources are exhausted to bring about the magic. Each instance is experientially unique, a one-time-only affair, and its reason for existing ceases the moment it has finished providing an instance of enjoyment. There is nothing about this form of play that can keep social isolation at bay forever either, it is merely embraced for a limited period of time. It is hoped that by the time it is over the carceral archipelago of isolation will also have ended because they are, after all, usually fleeting events themselves in present modernity.

And so, as the night continued ‘the Boyz’ fell deeper into the event. Undesirable feelings associated with social isolation could not rematerialize inside the bunker, not while the magic of chaos burned brightly. The music flowed with an invisible energy, its low thumping tones bouncing rapidly from wall to wall. The vibrations grew to become so intense we could physically feel it as our hearts started to beat in synch with the wilder and more irregular reverberation. Later, when this feeling began to seem almost natural Box ‘spiced things up’ further by lighting his fireworks. Great white sparks would crackle and jump from the fuses, giving him mere seconds in his drunken state to escape the potential path of each explosive. After lighting one he would stumble away as fast as possible while being cheered on by the rest of us. And then, with a spectacular BANG the fireworks would burst and fill the room with aggressive flashes and dazzling colours, or they would shoot past our heads and whirl around the chamber as they bounced against the ceiling and walls. Before long, the room was filled with white swirling smoke. It was both mesmerizing and confusing as beams of light from our torches gave the impression that flames were ablaze all around us.

There was no time to worry about the condition of isolation anymore for the prison had become one of unadulterated leisure. Rather than experience the situation as one of separation or a-lack-of, ‘the Boyz’ opted to enjoy it, and to live their lives as fully as possible while they could. Nothing else mattered for the remainder of their time in the bunker, there was no room to worry about tomorrow while the beers flowed and fire inside us burned. Instead, as people who are willing to practice anthropotechnics ‘the Boyz’ sang and danced the night away. They allowed the chaos of the moment to be embraced, and it turned out the chaos was absolutely magnificent.

Conclusion

I began this paper by pointing out that social isolation is something that is likely to be at the forefront of many people’s minds at the moment given that a significant proportion of the world’s population is, or has been, subject to lockdown rules. This was my initial reason for choosing to write a paper about the topic. However, rather than focus on the usual themes of separation and a-lack-of, what I wanted to reveal through the use of an example of leisure (specifically an experience of urban exploration) is that social isolation can be thought about differently. That is to say, what I have argued is that social isolation can be experienced as a source of enchantment in the twenty-first century because there are people who have grown used to living in a ‘liquid’ world that is becoming ever more changeable, uncertain and insecure.

Shifting the focus of the paper to my own ethnographic research and a narrative episode that described how a group of urban explorers found themselves stranded on an uninhabited island, I started by unpacking more broadly how instances of social isolation have become a frequent occurrence in present modernity. As I argued, the increasing use of technology combined with processes of individualization have caused people to experience greater feelings of anxiety, loneliness and identity loss. However, it is important to remind the reader that I do not view social isolation as being intrinsic to the twenty-first century, it is not a phenomenon specific to our epoch. As Hannah Arendt (1972) reveals, it was a prominent feature of ‘solid’ modernity as well. What I am suggesting, therefore, is that social isolation has simply evolved and become more conspicuous as people can expect to encounter a multiplicity of unstable social situations and experiences over the course of their lives.

In keeping with the overarching theme of the paper, and to begin unpacking a way in which social isolation might be viewed in a more optimistic and hopeful way, I have drawn on Foucault’s (1977) metaphor of carceral archipelagos. However, I have endeavoured to adapt the idea so it is more in tune with the conditions of present modernity. As it was argued, carceral archipelagos of isolation can be viewed as representing the wide variety of temporary instances of social isolation that might be experienced by people like ‘the Boyz’ throughout their lives. At the time they can feel detached and prison-like, but as I have pointed out they rarely keep people locked away for long periods of time. What is also important is that there are individuals who have learned to embrace them in creative ways by choosing to use them as a source of leisure.

With Peter Sloterdijk’s (2013) idea of anthropotechnics in mind, I have argued in the latter part of the paper that responsibility for dealing with social isolation falls into the hands of individuals in present modernity, if people are willing to engage in the labour of self-shaping and the task of viewing life as something that can be experimented with. This means that if people are willing to take an ‘existential leap’ – as ‘acrobats’ to borrow Sloterdijk’s way of putting it – they can restructure certain conditions and situations and live life as fully as possible. In other words, using leisure as a sphere of anthropotechnics allows people to transform carceral archipelagos of isolation into carceral archipelagos of leisure, and it is here that playful strategies can be employed to embrace things like inner chaos which are normally hidden or locked away. Of course, embracing inner chaos is only one way individuals might explore and invent ideas about themselves and the spaces around them and there are likely to be many more that can be found. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to look for them. Instead, I leave it to other leisure scholars to continue the discussion about how social isolation might be reimagined and reinterpreted in the twenty-first century.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin P. Bingham

Kevin P. Bingham is a lecturer at Barnsley College, based in the Higher Education section of the Sport Department. I am also employed by Sheffield Hallam University as a Researcher.

Notes

1 Urban explorers, also known as ‘urbexers’, are individuals who explore human-made spaces, usually those that are abandoned or hidden from everyday view.

2 As Bauman (2000) argues, in the ‘solid’ modern era people adhered to socially prescribed lifestyles which helped them form durable identities and shared ideas. Rationality, therefore, was one of the essential pillars of ‘solid’ modernity, but as things have taken a ‘liquid’ turn it is something that is gradually disappearing in the present-day world.

3 Foucault’s (1977) original concept was used to describe an extensive network of prisons and institutions that had various mechanisms of normalising social control. What is particularly useful about his idea is that it emphasises capillary power rather than centralised power, so it leaves room for carceral archipelagos to evolve into their own regimes and practices.

4 To understand what I mean by the ‘Chernobyl child’ and the ‘ping pong move’, the reader should search for Stampa med Leroy’s lesson in ‘stomp’ on YouTube.