Leisure and the Luxury of Expérience

Abstract

This article examines the concept “experience”—“the elusive master concept”—which, in spite of its widespread use in leisure research and status as a modern ideal, has become the subject of much critical attention. The article begins by reviewing this critical material and presents a selective overview of the uses experience has for leisure research. Specifically, I caution against the notion that experience can provide epistemologically sufficient grounding for the study of leisure meanings and that we can govern interpretations of leisure by appealing to a general experientialist paradigm. It is argued that, as an epistemological bridge, appeals to the evidence of experience are too flimsy to bear heavy traffic. An account of “expérience” that is etymologically sensitive is emphasized to urge leisure scholars to overcome epistemological orthodox and work towards a restatement of the relationship between leisure and experience.

Keywords:

• experience
• expérience
• experientialism
• meaning holism
• pragmatism

Notes

This particular view is exemplified in a special issue of Journal of Leisure Research examining leisure as a multi-phase experience in which Stewart (1998) asserted that “characterizing leisure as a state of mind is a truism which few would argue” (p. 391) that ““leisure” and “leisure experience” are terms whose meanings cover a wide breadth of mentalistic states” (p. 391), and that, on this basis, the task for leisure research is to “[i]dentify…relevant states [and] whether individuals and their communities are improved due to these states” (p. 392).