ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the idea of 'freedom' in 'free time'. In the conception of leisure as time that is free from constraints, the idea is that leisure defines a space for people to choose freely the activities that they desire to engage in, rather than being forced to conform to the structured obligations of, for instance, work or care tasks. The most popular position in more recent times is to support the idea of free will, and that is generally done in one of two ways: libertarianism and compatibilism. One of the classical conceptions of leisure, the ancient Greek idea of skholē, already contains that not-so-subtle balancing act between freedom and constraint, the more or less explicit normativity that is built into any situation where there is, or claimed to be, a freedom of choice. Several leisure scholars have highlighted the prominence of 'play' in leisure practices.
