COMMUNITY IN POSTMODERN CULTURE: THE PLACE OF LEISURE
Erin Sharpe, Brock University
Introduction
Community has long occupied a central place in leisure research and practice.
Broadly speaking, the goal of this work has been to understand and secure the place of
leisure as a builder and maintainer of community. However, while the work on leisure
and community has made important developments, I submit that it has not fully
considered the broad social and cultural changes that have come to be known as
postmodernity. Specifically, we need to ask: How is community transformed in
postmodern culture? And what is the place of leisure? This paper explores these
questions and concludes that although leisure becomes a central domain for the making
of community, that leisure communities hold a number of incongruities that reflect the
postmodern culture in which they are found. The hope is that the ideas presented in this
paper will offer material for leisure and community theorists and practitioners to consider
in their work. But first: How is community transformed in postmodern culture?
Community in Postmodern Culture
Contingency, fluidity, fragmentation, de-differentiation, hybridization – these are
words often used to describe postmodern culture. One approach to understanding their
meaning is to examine how such characteristics tangibly appear in contemporary cultural
practices and social relations. For example, fluidity characterizes post-industrial
economics where financial leaders are no longer the commodity-based Fordist factories
but the decentralized and elusive dot-com companies that trade in information (Bauman,
2000). Hybridization is seen in art, architecture, and culture, where discrete styles or
genres are woven or fused together to produce such phenomena as fusion cuisine, country
hip-hop, and ‘faction’ literature (Geertz, 1983) Hybridization and de-differentiation can
also be seen in contemporary struggles of identity, where categories that once stood as
stable markers of identity (male/female; gay/straight) have begun to blur and lose their
distinctiveness. With respect to communities, we have a similar fragmentation and dedifferentiation that has broadened and transformed contemporary meanings of
community. Specifically, we can identify the following trends:
A ‘De-Placing’ of Community
As the emergence of such social phenomena as Internet chat rooms illustrate,
conceptualization of community as being tied to a fixed location or shared territory (the
archetype of the rural town) have expanded to include communities that exist in virtual or
hyperreal space (Jones, 1998; Lashua, 2001). Bender (1978, p. 6) contended that
community is best defined as “an experience rather than a place. As simply as possible,
community is where community happens.” Further, as communities deplace, so too do
they proliferate. Individuals now have the mobility and technology to maintain
membership in numerous discrete communities in which they have unique identities and
social relations (Gergen, 1991).
Communities of Interest and Emotion, not Interdependence or Instrumentality
Traditionally, communities formed when individuals were bound together in
instrumental and interdependent relationships – we depended on others to help us do
things, and they depended on us. In postmodern culture, individuals instead come
together based on shared interests or styles. Bellah and his colleagues (1985) have
referred to these groupings as “lifestyle enclaves” or “communities of interest.”
Similarly, Maffesoli (1996) documented the emergence of “emotional communities,”
which he described as intense, temporary groupings based on feeling, not obligation.
Futher, what has taken a central role in evaluating communities are the emotional
qualities of affection and closeness, and their ability to produce a sense of community
(McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Shields (1992) characterized this new feeling-centred
sociability as a shift from the “contract community” to the “contact community.”
Leisure as a Domain for Community-Making
In sum, what postmodernity has ushered in is a weakening of community
commitment to the extent that community is now best described as a “light cloak” rather
than an “iron cage” (Bauman, 2000). In fact, Bauman suggested that we have reached the
point where “all communities are postulated; projects rather than realities, something that
comes after, not before the individual choice (p. 169). For leisure, the most obvious
implication of this movement toward community as a chosen pursuit is that leisure takes
on a central role as a domain to make and experience community. Indeed, numerous
studies have documented the emergence of community based in the leisure domain.
These studies range from communities that form at within leisure spaces such as
clubs and raves (e.g., Trammachi, 2000), to communities that emerge around sports and
games (e.g., Kemp), to vacation-based communities that form around travel and
adventure (e.g., Neuman, 1993). For example, Ayers-Counts and Counts (1992, p. 163)
documented the community that emerged among RVers, noting that people adopted the
RV lifestyle “because it provided them with a sense of community lacking in the suburbs
they lived for decades.” Levy (1989) similarly used the term community to describe the
social solidarity and ties of affection that existed among recreational boaters who were
members of the same marina. Indeed, the literature makes it clear that ‘leisure
communities’ are a central phenomenon of contemporary life.
Meanings of Leisure Communities
However, while this literature has effectively documented the emergence of
leisure communities, it has also had the tendency of presenting leisure communities as a
straightforward substitute to traditional community. However, leisure communities
occupy a unique location within the social milieu. Although leisure communities are
reminiscent in form and feeling to traditional communities, they are much more
incongruous in their meaning than traditional community. In fact, what we tend to find in
leisure communities is a unification of the contradictory elements of intimacy and
anonymity, obligation and freedom, and attachment and ephemerality. These are
discussed below.
Intimacy and Anonymity: Much like traditional communities, leisure communities foster
intimacy and closeness between members. However, because leisure communities tend to
occupy a sphere that is/can be fragmented from other domains of life, there is also room
for anonymity between members, in the sense that everyday roles and status markers can
be kept hidden and alternative identities can be performed.
Obligation and Freedom: The traditional “ties that bind” us to communities – duty,
obligation, commitment – do arise in the leisure sphere, as members come to depend on
and be depended upon by others in their attempt to do leisure well. However, these
obligations exist within a framework of freedom and choice, in the sense that the ties that
bind can easily be broken, if one so chooses to detach from the leisure community.
Attachment and Ephemerality: Much as is found in traditional community, attachments
between members can be strong, as people experience “communitas” with others who
share similar values, interests, and beliefs (Turner, 1982). However, although strong
attachments are felt, they are often temporary and ephemeral. Leisure communities are a
“time out of time” (Turner, 1982) that can be entered and left at the end of an evening, a
night, a week, or a season. As Rojek (1995, p. 152) noted, the ephemerality of
postmodern communities is for many, part of their attraction: “In the condition of
postmodernity a life permanently lived in intense emotional solidarity would at best be
self-deceiving and at worst totally suffocating.”
Discussion and Application
Postmodernity has transformed our experience of all aspects of social life.
Specifically, the communities of postmodern culture are increasingly distanced from
place, involve emotional rather than instrumental relationships, and are entered out of
individual choice rather than community obligation. Under these conditions, leisure as a
domain for community-making clearly takes a more central role. However, as we work to
develop the role of leisure in building community, we must recognize that although the
contemporary leisure community resembles the traditional community, it is a unique form
of sociability with its own meanings. Further, as we work to secure the place of leisure as
a builder of community, we must attend to these changes or else we work to promote a
relationship that no longer describes the experience of many members of contemporary
culture. In other words, success stems from generating understandings and practices of
leisure in community that reflect the characteristics of postmodern culture: hybridization,
de-differentiation, fluidity, and contingency.
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ABSTRACTS
of Papers Presented at the
Eleventh Canadian Congress on Leisure Research
May 17 – 20, 2005
Hosted by
Department of Recreation and Tourism Management
Malaspina University-College
Nanaimo, B.C.
Abstracts compiled and edited by
Tom Delamere, Carleigh Randall, David Robinson
CCLR-11 Programme Committee
Tom Delamere
Dan McDonald
Carleigh Randall
Rick Rollins
and
David Robinson
Copyright © 2005 Canadian Association for Leisure Studies
ISBN 1-896886-01-9