Abstract
The concepts and analytical tools developed by Jean-François Lyotard and Bruno Latour have been employed to examine a wide variety of cultural phenomena, but have yet to be vigorously utilized in the realm of leisure studies. This chapter aims to bridge that gap by providing an introductory look into some of Lyotard and Latour’s best-known works. The chapter begins with an outline of a Lyotardian take on what the postmodern is, followed by an introduction on how we can relate some of his ideas on paralogy and the sublime, as critical tools that can be applied to research on leisure. In the second part of the chapter, criticisms of Lyotard and the idea of the postmodern, as raised by Bruno Latour, are brought forth, followed by an introduction on some of his ideas on Actor-Network Theory and the amodern as an alternative on how to deal with “postmodern” phenomena.
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Notes
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I am not denying the existence of people who combine labor and leisure or those who engage in serious leisure (Stebbins 2014) or work in the leisure industry or any combination of instances that blur the lines between the two, but here I take the position that there exists various state promulgated laws and policies that define what leisure is for its citizens in terms of non-work time when “New forms of work were created in the mills, factories and docks…sharply divided the time of work and the time of leisure” (Spracklen 2015, p. 13) or through leisure policies and the creation of leisure facilities which point to leisure as something “outside” of paid work (Leheny 2003).
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Malick, M. (2017). Postmodernity and Leisure. In: Spracklen, K., Lashua, B., Sharpe, E., Swain, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56479-5_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56479-5_39
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