ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that one aspect of the meaning of leisure is intimately connected with the characteristics, experience and purposes of play. It explains nature and meaning of leisure in contemporary society is also inter-related with work. The chapter discusses a play centred view of leisure, arguing that the quality of many leisure activities and experiences is dependent on the purity of the play element in their makeup. It examines some aspects of ‘the work-centred’ view of leisure, which in many ways has dominated debate on the significance of leisure since the advent of industrial society. A central element in describing an activity as leisure lies in its apparent opposition to work; as freely chosen instead of obligatory and done for its own sake instead of for instrumental reasons. Current leisure provided in theme parks and swimming pools attempts to produce ever more spectacular loop-the-loops and water flumes.
