Individuals, instinct and moralities: exploring multi-species leisure using the serious leisure perspective

ABSTRACT

While there has been increasing interest in the human-animal leisure intersection in recent times, leisure still largely remains human-centric or focussed. Much remains to be explored in seeking to understand animal leisure, and the intersection of animal leisure with human leisure. Spring boarding from Franklin’s argument that understanding cross species involvement calls for intense, reflective analyses that can begin in our own human lives and experiences we use an ethnographic approach to explore the intersection of human and animal leisure’s. Use is made of Stebbins’ Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) categorisation to present observations, analyses and learnings as to the leisure lives of the 5 dogs that share our (the authors) very different multi-species leisure lives. Our explorations demonstrate that multi-species leisure cannot be presumed; and that experiences of leisure per se intersect with individual animal preferences and personalities. We also identify the potential to see some animal leisure as Serious-Amateur and even Devotee Work when incorporating ‘instinct’ (the outcome of generational human control of some species fertility) into considerations, and briefly explore the extension of human parenting and leisure moralising to the rising profile of fur-parenting.

KEYWORDS:

• Sentience
• pets
• leisure
• companion animal
• ethnography
• human-animal

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the animal-others who are the focus of this work. They receive no payment, or status from this, but our lives are enriched by their presence and engagement in ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carmel Nottle

Dr Carmel Nottle is a lecturer in Human Movement, Sport and Exercise Science at the University of South Australia. She has an interest in the human-animal intersection from a health and wellbeing perspective but also a particular interest in leisure activity for human companion animals and the welfare and leisure of assistance dogs.

Janette Young

Dr Janette Young is a lecturer in health promotion at the University of South Australia. She has an interest in complexity and systemic thinking particularly human: animal intersections. Her research and writing focus on understanding how relationships with animals play a role in human wellbeing whilst also recognizing the implications for animal welfare, social and environmental justice.