Serious Leisure of Young People in Big European Cities ...

Working Papers WP 2014-04 Centre for German and European Studies (CGES)

Bielefeld / St. Petersburg

2014

№ 4

Irina Antoshchuk

Serious Leisure of Young People in Big

European Cities (Saint Petersburg, Berlin)

as A Biographical Project

WP 2014-04

Working Papers WP 2014-04 Centre for German and European Studies

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Bielefeld University

St. Petersburg State University

Centre for German and European Studies (CGES)

CGES Working Papers series includes publication of materials prepared within different activities of

the Center for German and European Studies both in St. Petersburg and in Germany: The CGES

supports educational programmes, research and scientific dialogues. In accordance with the CGES

mission, the Working Papers are dedicated to the interdisciplinary studies of different aspects of

German and European societies.

The paper has been written on the basis of the MA Thesis defended in the MA SES in June 2014

supervised by Dr. Svetlana Yaroshenko. The author’s internship at the Centre for German and

European Studies in Bielefeld, Germany made an invaluable contribution to the following research

project. The publication of the MA thesis in the CGES Working Paper series was recommended by

the Examination Committee as one of the best papers out of five MA theses defended by the

students of the MA Programme ‘’Studies in European Societies’’ at St. Petersburg State University in

June 2014.

Irina Antoshchuk has graduated from the Faculty of Sociology of

St. Petersburg State University in 2014 (Major – Studies in European

Societies). Her academic interests include sociology of leisure and labor,

theory of cognitive capitalism, postindustrial society, studies of migration

and nationalism, science and technology studies, sociology of emotions.

Contact: [email protected]

ISSN 1860-5680

© Centre for German and European Studies, 2015

mailto:[email protected]


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Table of Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 3

2. Theoretical Background: Leisure in Postindustrial Society and Serious Leisure in Late Modernity ............................................................. 9

2.1 Leisure: Definition and Meaning in the Postindustrial Society ....... 10 2.1.1. Leisure as time, activity and experience ...................................... 10 2.1.2. Integrated concept of leisure ........................................................ 14 2.1.3. Leisure – a realm of freedom in relations of material production .................................................................................... 16 2.2 Serious Leisure: Concept, Characteristics and Model .................... 22 2.2.1. Serious leisure: definition and main features ............................... 22 2.2.2. Perseverance, career and effort: investments and costs ............. 24 2.2.3. Commitment and obligation ......................................................... 27 2.2.4. Benefits of serious leisure ............................................................ 29 2.2.5. Model of serious leisure ............................................................... 34 2.3 Late Modernity and Individualization. Biographical Project and Serious Leisure ............................................................................ 35 2.3.1. Individualization as a structural condition of late modernity .......... 36 2.3.2. Consequences of individualization for biography construction ...... 38 2.3.3. Biographical project: main features ............................................... 42 2.3.4. Biographical project: definition, model and ties to serious leisure ........................................................................................... 45

3. Empirical Investigation of Serious Leisure ............................................. 47

3.1. Research Design, Method and Sampling. Characteristics of Respondents and Collected Data ...................................................... 48 3.2. Serious Leisure: Activities and Their Characteristics .................... 55 3.3. Serious Leisure: Patterns of Involvement and Contribution to the Biographical Project. .................................................................... 66 3.3.1. Investments in serious leisure: Financial and material inputs ...... 66 3.3.2. Investments in serious leisure: Time and effort as major inputs ........................................................................................... 69 3.3.3. Costs and benefits of serious leisure. Patterns of involvement. ... 78 3.3.4. Serious leisure: patterns of involvement and contribution to the biographical project ................................................................ 81

4. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 85

References ..................................................................................................... 88

Appendix 1 ..................................................................................................... 93

Appendix 2 ..................................................................................................... 96

Appendix 3 ................................................................................................... 110

Appendix 4 ................................................................................................... 123


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1. Introduction

Leisure is an essential component of people’s everyday life. It is hardly possible to separate it from human existence, nor can human beings escape leisure or substitute it with something else. It proves to be a persistent and continuous phenomenon, on the one hand, but is also quite vulnerable and easy to get transformed or even collapse under constraining influences and interferences from other spheres of life. Leisure is also a complex phenomenon that is widely spread and relatively universal, but simultaneously very specific and particular, with distinctive features for certain time periods, cultures, social classes and groups. It is viewed as an area open for exercising one’s freedom, independent action and right to self-determination, but in fact leisure is largely shaped by structural conditions, power and economic relations. It embodies a fundamental problem of human existence perhaps even sharper than other life domains - as here the urge for freedom of choice and self-realization is the greatest, while external influences and structural compulsion remain.

Leisure has been a subject of many reflections since ancient times, and its importance and specificity for the life of a human being has been repeatedly articulated and recognized. In the religious texts, for example, in the Old Testament, we find that God marked the seventh day as special and highly regarded as it was a time for rest after six days of work on creating the world: “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation1”. Leisure has also received revealing interpretations in literature. For example, in one of his novels Maugham’s hero praises leisure as highest value and goal: "Leisure, if people only knew! It’s the most priceless thing a man can have and they’re such fools they don’t even know it’s something to aim at”2. Many ideas on leisure, its nature and unique features were elaborated in the field of philosophy. Aristotle remains one of the crucial authors still influential in leisure studies and he characterizes it as “the first principle of all action”3 and considers it as an activity of higher order. It is “separate and higher than labor”4 as it doesn’t only bring “pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life”5, but is distinguished by the “pursuit of excellence for its own sake”6 and devoted to development of human intellectual and moral capacities. Thus leisure becomes an “arena in which good emerges”7 because within it a nurturing of human spirit and cultivation of human virtues takes place.

1 Old Testament. Genesis. (1995). (National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, Trans.) Retrieved from Oremus Bible Browser http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+1. 2 Maugham, W.S. The lotus eater. Retrieved from http://maugham.classicauthors.net/lotuseater/. 3 Aristotle. Politics. Book eight. (B. Jowett, Trans.). Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.8.eight.html. 4 Hemingway, J. L. (1988). Lesiure and civility: Reflections on a Greek ideal. Leisure Sciences, 10(3), 179-191. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., p.188. 7 Ibid., p.189.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+1

http://maugham.classicauthors.net/lotuseater/

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.8.eight.html


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Leisure is definitely a significant sphere of human activity. Scientific investigations have shown that its importance and effects are not limited to individuals, but also affect groups and have a big impact on society in general. On the personal level, quality of leisure, its fullness and variety, contribute to the feeling of happiness and state of wellbeing, bringing satisfaction, enjoyable experiences and enabling one to lead of a “life of meaning and depth”8. Good illustration can be obtained from the studies of the phenomenon of flow by Csikzentmihalyi: it was found that hobbies, active games and sports are much more likely to produce highly gratifying and enriching experience than passive leisure pastimes9, which in turn leads to the greater sense of happiness and strength. Leisure has positive consequences and can be advantageous on the level of interpersonal relations: it encourages communication, facilitates connections and functions as a powerful means of group formation and solidarity between its members. For instance, Durkheim demonstrated how certain leisure activities, like religious rituals and collective feasts, result in achieving solidarity and creation of norms and rules regulating behavior in the community10. Leisure makes an essential input into the functioning of the society as a whole and can be viewed as a resource containing potential for the development of society. The work of Huizinga “Homo ludens” (1938) provides a good proof of that: it revealed how play, taking place in the sphere of leisure and being vital for the training of communicative and imaginative abilities, becomes a necessary component of cultural development and human progress11. It is also well-known that Marx referred to leisure time as a treasure and value of the society because it constitutes “the true realm of freedom, the development of human powers which is an end in itself”12. Therefore free time can serve an indicator of how well developed and rich the society is: “For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labor time, but rather disposable time”13.

In social sciences leisure studies are normally traced back to the fundamental work of Veblen “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, published in 1899. He studied elite members of society and found out that intentional engagement in non-productive activities and wasteful conspicuous consumption serve to mark status differences and distinguish one class in society from others14. There was a big interest in the exploration of leisure in the 1920-30s, and it was the period of the first time-budget studies and collection of statistical data on leisure participation. Leisure became a separate research category in contrast to previously held investigations of workers and their living conditions with

8 Archibald, K. (2008). Leisure time and human happiness. (p. 2). Perspective: Mind & Spirit Lecture. Retrieved from https://www.byui.edu/Documents/instructional_development/Perspective/V8n2PDF/v8n2_Archibald.pdf. 9 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. (p. 67). New York: Basic Books. 10 Detailed analysis of leisure in Durkheim’s works can be found at: Rojek, C. (2013 [1985]). Capitalism and leisure theory. (pp. 49-60). Routledge. 11 Rojek, C. (2010). Leisure studies. (Vol I). Origins: classic and contemporary theories. (p. 26). Sage, London. 12 Marx, K. (1981[1894]). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 3). (p. 959). London: Penguin. 13 Marx, K. (1993). Grundrisse. (p. 629). Penguin. 14 Veblen, T. (2003). The theory of the leisure class. The Pennsylvania State University.

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educational or political purposes15. An increasing amount of studies were inspired, on the one hand, by the growth of cities and, on the other hand, by the industrial development and transformation of working conditions for the majority of the European population (i.e. the reduction of working week, fixed weekends and vacations)16. Studies of the work process, its technological and organizational aspects and were supplemented with a look at the workforce as one of the major contributors to production. Examination of factors influencing the effectiveness of labor led researchers beyond “the pre-occupation with work-place determinant of industrial behavior”17. Leisure was discovered as an area of rest and energy restoration for the workers which is required for their continuous and successful participation in the production process. Thus studies of leisure at that time were undertaken largely within the field of industrial sociology. Leisure was treated as a complementary sphere to paid employment and important in that it enables the workforce to maintain and reproduce itself and enhances the productivity and effectiveness of work.

Investigations of leisure continued to grow throughout the period after World War II and particularly proliferated in 1960-70s/80s. Leisure studies were recognized as a specialized area in science, and this recognition went along with the institutional establishment of leisure studies at different universities, emergence of academic courses and professional journals in the US and then Europe. This period was marked by the domination of “leisure society” (Bell, 1974) or “leisure-oriented society” (Kahn, Wiener, 1967) thesis and “civilization of leisure” (Dumazedier, 1962) theory. Scholars observed the general trend of the gradual, but steady decrease in working hours, which, along with technological advancements, led to the gradual increase in the amount of free time available for the individual. They expected that working time would continue to decline, that the working week would be reduced to 35 hours per week or even less - creating an unprecedented amount of free time in the history of humankind and unlimited opportunities for the development of human abilities. It was supposed to lead to radical transformations in society and result in major economic changes and political implications18. The research in 1960-70s was characterized by the increasing attention to the different forms of leisure and their influence on the well-being of the person, life satisfaction, physical health and sense of happiness. This approach with a focus on personal attitudes and opinions was criticized for methodological individualism and the widely accepted understanding of leisure as an area of freedom, spontaneity and choice was reproached for confusing the desired future with the reality and not taking into account the existing internal and external constraints on behavior in the free time19. Therefore in the 80s there is a trend to overcome the limitations of this perspective and explore the structural 15 Mommaas, H. (1997). European leisure studies at the crossroads? A history of leisure research in Europe. Leisure Sciences, 19(4), 243-245. 16 Зборовский Г. Е. Социология досуга и социология культуры: поиск взаимосвязи //Социологические исследования. – 2006. – №. 12. – 84 c. Режим доступа: http://www.twirpx.com/file/169795/. 17 Parry, N., & Coalter, F. (1982). Sociology and leisure: A question of root or branch. Sociology, 16(2), 223. 18 Зборовский Г.Е. Социология досуга и культуры… С. 86-87.; Rojek, C. (2010). Leisure Studies. (Vol I). Origins: Classic and Contemporary Theories. (pp. 30-31). Sage, London. 19 Parry, N., & Coalter, F. (1982). Sociology and leisure…p. 225.

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influences and institutional restrictions in leisure from postmarxist and feminist positions. The categories of class, gender, and ethnicity are brought back into the research agenda and free time activities are normally analyzed within the wider system of capitalistic relationships and macro social processes20. In the subsequent years (1990-2000s) the emphasis shifted towards analysis of leisure in the framework of globalization and global inequalities, increasing consumption and ecological concerns, commercial industry and markets of leisure21.

The concept of serious leisure emerged in the context of both the “leisure society” statement and of attention to the issues of individual well-being and satisfaction. As elaborated by Stebbins in 1982, serious leisure was considered as a meaningful and complex activity which can serve as a powerful alternative to work, when the amount of working hours and importance of jobs are gradually, but inevitably, diminishing:

“A smaller number of jobs and a substantially reduced number of work hours are in store for many employees in the postindustrial society. […] they will increasingly be searching the world of leisure for ways to express their abilities, fulfill their potential, and identify themselves as unique human beings. Serious leisure is a main route open to people with these goals”22.

On the other side, serious leisure reflected the concern for the quality of life and personal happiness, which could be achieved through the optimal lifestyle, including choosing and getting involved in the proper pastimes. Serious leisure is perceived a one of the major areas where satisfaction and personal enrichment can be found:

“A major goal in leisure studies is to identify, examine and publicize the vast range of leisure activities, to help people find and pursue those activities they find most satisfying. […] My argument is that people searching for an optimal leisure lifestyle will most likely find it in the sphere of serious leisure”23.

Though the leisure society thesis has almost dissipated, serious leisure became quite a popular notion in the social sciences, able to capture a variety of leisure forms and experiences. The term has been widely used in sociological and psychological research. Investigations on serious leisure embrace various pastimes: sport, tourism, volunteering, different hobbies (i.e. books, dogs, shopping) and amateurism (dance, bands, choirs, etc.). They deal with different issues, starting from more common topics of subjective well-being, coping with stress and the phenomenon of flow to a more rare concentration on networks and communication in serious leisure, its role in community formation and methodological questions of measuring serious leisure. Some studies pay attention to the gender and class categories in

20 Mommaas, H. (1997). European leisure studies at the crossroads? A history of leisure research in Europe. Leisure Sciences, 19(4), 251. 21 Ibid., p. 252. 22 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 251. 23 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 18). Calgary: Detselig.


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serious leisure, its position in relation to work and family life24.

My research continues the line of serious leisure studies, but seeks to bring new knowledge into the area. It examines serious leisure within the individual’s biography and life trajectory, in light of the individual’s perception and construction of oneself, making sense of current activities and planning for the future. There are very few studies that are devoted to such issues. The investigation is also distinguished by its comparative perspective: the analysis of serious leisure in the biographical project is conducted within two typical and comparable, yet different social settings (Saint Petersburg, Berlin), which enables the researcher to identify meaningful similarities and differences regarding the investigated issue.

The investigation focuses on young people between the ages of 18 and 35 living in big European cities, Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Berlin, Germany, and pursuing amateur activities in the sphere of art (music, dance, drawing, theatre, cinema, photography). Though scholars argue that the experience and meaning of being young in the contemporary western society is changing25, that “youth” is acquiring different connotations, that its duration in a lifecycle is prolonged and transformed and its boundaries are difficult to mark distinctly, young people, more specifically young adults, were nevertheless chosen as a special socio-demographic group sharing common traits of life situation and having similar life tasks relevant for our research. As young age is constructed in a particular way in different historical epochs and social contexts, youth in late modernity is formed by the involvement in institutions of education, family and labour market and movement between these institutions26. Therefore, young age is defined by the completion of secondary education and transition to vocational/ higher education and/ or paid employment and professional life, by growing independence from parental family and engaging in partnerships of one’s own, by decreasing reliance on parents’ finances and establishing the source of income of one’s own, by acquisition of responsibility over individual’s life and its maintenance. For our research it is of particular significance that people in young adult age are engaged in finding their way in life and forming a certain lifestyle, with issues of self-determination and self-identity being especially vital. In addition, during the youth phase, individuals generally have fewer obligations in terms of family and work responsibilities in comparison to middle age and, as a rule, are able to spend more time on leisure, and have more possibilities to experiment with their pastimes and activities.

Saint Petersburg and Berlin were chosen as cases of big cities: they constitute a special social environment characterized by large heterogeneous population, intersection of different cultures, religions, traditions, pluralism and tolerance to

24 Comprehensive list of studies within serious leisure perspective could be found at: Website on serious leisure perspective. Retrieved from http://www.seriousleisure.net/serious-leisure-general.html. 25 Some works dealing with this issue include France, A. (2007). Understanding youth in late modernity. McGraw-Hill International; Jones, J. (2009). Youth. Cambridge.; Blossfeld, H. P., Klijzing, E., Mills, M., & Kurz, K. (Eds.). (2006). Globalization, uncertainty and youth in society: The losers in a globalizing world. Routledge. 26 Furlong, A., Cartmel, F. (2007). Young people and social change: New perspectives. Buckingham: Open University Press and McGraw-Hill.

http://www.seriousleisure.net/serious-leisure-general.html


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different lifestyles, wide range of leisure options and opportunities to choose among them. In general, they represent a social context offering young people a wide range of opportunities for their own life construction, for the determining and realizing individual way of living.

The focus on amateur art activities is not of major importance in our investigation as all forms of serious leisure share the basic features other examples could have been taken as well. Still, to reduce the influence of the particular traits, associated with certain type of serious leisure (for example, with sport) and to ensure some variety, we concentrate on amateur pastimes in the art sphere as both sufficiently narrow but still containing diversity of pastimes.

Regarding theoretical grounds, I use the theory of individualization (U.Beck and E.Beck-Gernsheim) and suggest exploring serious leisure in the larger structural conditions of late modernity and how they are lived through by individuals in their personal biographies. The interaction between external/ macro social conditions and internal/ micro/ actor perceptions and attitudes results in the formation of the biographical project. This notion is based on the ideas of “reflexive project of the self” (A.Giddens) and represents a means of dealing with the structural and institutional constraints people find themselves in. Biographical project arises out of the interplay between the conditions of modern society, marked by transformation of traditional institutions like family or community, expansion of new institutions like market and welfare state and the uncertainty and risk associated with them. As people strive to make sense and gain control over their lives in such circumstances, to find a place in society and form a coherent identity, the biographical project emerges as a response to this need.

My research is aimed at determining the position and role of serious leisure in the biographical project. As a substantial activity, and due to its specific features, serious leisure may be particularly relevant for coping with the insecurity and unpredictability generated by modern institutions and become a strategy in building one’s own life. To test this assumption we need to understand what part serious leisure occupies in the biographical project, how it is incorporated in and what role it plays in its formation, whether it facilitates the integrity and coherence of the biographical project, or may lead to fragmentation and inner confrontation.

Therefore the main research question is formulated this way: how does serious leisure contribute to the biographical projects of young people? Thus, the aim of the research is to identify the contribution of serious leisure to the biographical project and it includes the following objectives:

To determine the features and patterns of involvement in serious leisure

To find out the meaning and significance of serious leisure for young people, their attitudes to serious leisure

To identify the position of serious leisure in the biographical project


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To reveal the functions of serious leisure in the biographical project

To identify similarities and differences in serious leisure contributions to the biographical project among young people in Berlin and St Petersburg

To trace the impact of social and institutional context on the engagement in serious leisure and its contribution to the biographical project.

The object of the research is biographical project as a narrative construction and young people’s reflexive vision of the self, their activities and life trajectory. The subject of the investigation is the contribution of serious leisure to biographical projects, which consists of two components – position (what contribution is made?) and functions (how is the contribution made?) expressed in patterns of involvement (behavioral indicator) and attitudes to serious leisure, its meaning and significance (subjective indicator).

Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the most appropriate method for achieving the research objectives. Its advantage consists in incorporating certain structure and logical sequence of interview stages, enabling to keep the focus of attention and collect most relevant data, while also being sufficiently open and flexible to pursue emerging topics of potential significance to the research question as well as to leave enough possibilities for the respondents to construct their coherent and robust narratives. The material for the investigation is comprised of 27 interviews: 13 interviews with young people living in Berlin and 14 interviews with young people from Saint Petersburg.

The structure of the thesis is the following: introduction, theoretical chapter, empirical chapter, conclusion and appendixes. In the theoretical chapter I consider the phenomenon of leisure in postindustrial or postfordist society; then I analyze serious leisure as the main concept of the research, examine its features and offer a combined conceptual model relevant for my research objectives; then I look into the theory of individualization and explore the notion of biographical project. In the empirical chapter I describe the research design in more detail and characterize the collected data. I proceed with analyzing the material, structuring the information according to features of serious leisure as elaborated in the model and analyzing the contribution of serious leisure in the biographical project and comparing data from both cities.

2. Theoretical Background: Leisure in Postindustrial Society and Serious Leisure in Late Modernity

This chapter aims at exploring the theoretical foundations of my research. Serious leisure is the main concept I use and therefore I examine it in detail, paying attention to its specific features and emphasis on the characteristics which are important for exploring the role of serious leisure in the biographical project. Serious leisure is also part of the wider phenomenon of leisure, which has lately been subject to significant revisions and challenges. Therefore it is necessary to analyze what is leisure and how it exists in contemporary society


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which I call “postindustrial” for the absence of a more suitable term. Finally, I consider the theory of individualization in late modernity and the notion of biographical project, thus finishing the outline of the research problem and explaining why serious leisure was placed at the centre of the investigation.

2.1. Leisure: Definition and Meaning in the Postindustrial Society

2.1.1. Leisure as time, activity and experience

The research focuses on serious leisure as a particular type of leisure activity, therefore it is important to understand the general meaning of leisure, its historical origins and the transformations it is undergoing at the current stage of economic and social development.

There are plenty of definitions of leisure, stressing one aspect or the other, but for the most part they fall into three categories: leisure as a time, leisure as an activity and leisure as an experience – time-based, activity-based or experience-based approach respectively27. Leisure as a time is one of the popular approaches to understanding of leisure, and here are some of the good examples from both Russian and English scientific literature:

Leisure […] is a block of unoccupied time, spare time, or free time when we are free to rest or do what we choose. Leisure is time beyond that which is required for existence, the things which we must do, biologically, to stay alive (that is, eat, sleep, eliminate, medicate, and so on): and subsistence, the things we must do to make a living as in work, or prepare to make a living as in school […]. Leisure is time in which our feelings of compulsion should be minimal. It is discretionary time, the time to be used according to our own judgement or choice (C.Brightbill, 1960)28.

Similar definition was formulated by Russian leisure scholars Patrushev, Kutyrev and Artyomov who considered free time as a “part of the day (week etc) which is free from work in public production and other obligatory activities (domestic labor, eating, sleeping and so on)”29. This understanding may be supplemented by the version of Prudenskiy who spoke about leisure as a “part of the non-work time, intended for the physical, intellectual development of the workers and the rest”30.

In these definitions leisure is perceived as a certain amount of time available for

27 Such typology of leisure definitions is quite common and used in wide range of books and articles, for example: Hurd, A. R., & Anderson, D. M. (2010). The park and recreation professional's handbook. (p. 9). Champaign: Human Kinetics.; Beatty, J. E., & Torbert, W. R. (2003). The false duality of work and leisure. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12(3), 240. 28 Brightbill, B.K. The challenge of leisure. In Veal, A.J. (2004). Definitions of leisure and recreation. (p. 4). University of Technology Sydney Working Paper № 4. Retrieved from http://195.130.87.21:8080/dspace/bitstream/123456789/465/1/Definitions%20of%20leisure%20and%20recreation.pdf. 29 Зборовский Г. Е. Социология досуга и социология культуры: поиск взаимосвязи //Социологические исследования. – 2006. – №. 12. – С. 52. Режим доступа: http://www.twirpx.com/file/169795/. 30 Ibid.

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the individual after fulfilling the occupations characterized by some obligation or compulsion and necessary to survive and provide for the living including work, studies, domestic duties and care for the self. Brightbill speaks about a block of time, presupposing that it assembles in a separate and lasting segment of the daytime, forms a special zone which can be more or less clearly differentiated from the other time areas. Russian scientists define leisure as just a part of the day or of non-working time and do not indicate whether it tends to create blocks or not. The concept of leisure as a time left over after necessary tasks are attended to is typically called residual. Its advantage is that it is straightforward enough, relies on clear parameters which can be measured (quantity of time), so it is objective and neutral - and therefore convenient for the research. Authors also mention other significant aspects of leisure: Brightbill underlines free use and exercising one’s own choice and realizing one’s desires in leisure as opposed to the compulsory character of other activities; Prudenskiy pays attention to the goal of free time – development of worker’s abilities and rest – as a constituting feature of leisure. These features are often viewed as important and present in other definitions.

To describe leisure as a special kind of activity or consisting of certain activities is quite common. Here we quote two versions of the definition provided by Dumazedier, a prominent French sociologist of leisure:

Leisure consists of a number of occupations in which the individual may indulge of his own free will – either to rest, to amuse himself, to add to his knowledge or improve his skills disinterestedly or to increase his voluntary participation in the life of the community after discharging his professional, family and social duties.31 (1960)

Leisure is activity – apart from the obligations of work, family, and society - to which the individual turns at will, for either relaxation, diversion, or broadening his knowledge and his spontaneous social participation, the free exercise of his creative capacity32. (1967)

The main emphasis of these definitions is that leisure exists as an activity or a number of occupations – something one does, participates or engages in. The definitions also point out the following important features of leisure: 1) this activity takes place outside of obligations and duties the person experiences in work, home or society in general, 2) it is chosen and pursued by the individual’s free will, 3) it is devoted to the relaxation, entertainment or distraction, to the development of one’s abilities or participation in community life. We observe that leisure is counterpositioned in relation to the obligatory occupations and its free nature is underlined in opposition to the pressures and compulsion one encounters in social, professional or domestic life. But this understanding has some controversies: first, the notion of free will is too general and contradictory as, being tied by the obligations in all other spheres of life, an individual can hardly escape the constraining influence of society in leisure activities; second, many everyday life activities are located on the intersection of obligation and

31 Dumazedier, J. (1960). Current problems of the sociology of leisure. International Social Science Journal, 4(4), 527. 32 Anderson, N. (1974). Man's work and leisure (Vol. 4). (p. 6). Brill Archive.


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freedom and it is problematic to discern whether they should be included in leisure or not. For instance, the author speaks about the freedom from social obligations, but at the same time considers participation in the community affairs as leisure activity. The answer seems to lie in the character of this participation which is named voluntary or spontaneous, done “at will”, but it might be very difficult to draw boundaries between voluntary and involuntary deeds in the everyday life. For example, participation in common activity with one’s neighbors like cleaning the yard or planting trees may be an act of free will as well as result from the feeling of obligation. With family and domestic duties the situation is also quite complex: for example, attending a customary family dinner on Sundays or going for a walk with a dog might be reckoned to both tiresome duties and voluntary activities done on one’s free choice. While agreeing that leisure should be separated from work, it is difficult to clearly differentiate it from community participation, domestic chores, self-maintenance and care-for-the-family activities in some cases. The difficulty concentrates in the determining where obligation ends and freedom starts and vice versa, because they are not absolute values and represent a kind of continuum which is barely subject to external examination. Therefore freedom and obligation in general terms can barely serve as a precise criterion for distinguishing leisure, but represent important aspects of subjective experience of leisure and non-leisure.

The word “disinterestedly” in the first definition should be emphasized. Though leisure is definitely pursued with some motivation staying behind, here disinterestedness implies the absence of material or mundane interest. As one researcher puts it, leisure is “not remunerative” 33 and is not associated with maintaining physical existence and earning a living. This way we can speak about freedom from material concerns or difficulties imposed by basic necessities of life as a distinctive feature of leisure. It corresponds to some other descriptions of leisure as “the state or condition of being free from the urgent demands of lower level needs”, appearing when “the basic requirements for existence have been satisfied”34. This way leisure is comprehended not as an activity outside of professional and other obligations guided by the abstract free will. It is an activity which is not directed and devoted to the satisfaction of basic needs of survival and physical maintenance. Its freedom is gained by the separation and distancing from the necessities of existence. Leisure becomes a sort of luxury, an expression of surplus, a celebration of activity with no other purpose as for it own sake – this is what is called disinterestedness or “gratuitous quality”35 of leisure. At the same time leisure is grounded and depends on the activities performed for the necessities of living. It is based on the basic needs being satisfied so that efforts and interest can be directed to other matters. Thus, being devoid of survival concerns, leisure contains a potential for the realization of needs of a higher order. Though it can be debated what constitutes higher needs as well as where basic needs end, the

33 Kelly, J. R. (1972). Work and leisure: A simplified paradigm. Journal of Leisure Research, 4(1), 50-62. 34 Murphy, J. F. (1974). Concepts of leisure: Philosophical implications. (pp. 72, 109, 153). Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall. 35 Wilson, R. N. (1981). The courage to be leisured. Social Forces, 60(2), 285.


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crucial point is that leisure is a special kind of activity not aimed at gaining material rewards, not directed towards ensuring survival and providing means of subsistence. Therefore it grants relative freedom from their constraints and is undertaken for the realization of non-material interests and needs. Some of the positive effects of leisure, mentioned by Dumazedier, may represent such interests: from resting and amusing oneself to the goals of acquiring new knowledge and cultivating one’s capacities.

Considering leisure as an activity, we already started to analyze its character and the experience it brings. Now we pay more attention to the group of definitions, which place quality of experience at the centre of their understanding of leisure, and here are the examples:

Leisure is considered primarily as a condition, sometimes referred to as a state of being, an attitude of mind or a quality of experience. It is distinguished by the individual's perceived freedom to act and distinguished from conditions imposed by necessity. It is assumed to be pleasurable and, although it may appeal because of certain anticipated benefits, it is intrinsically motivated: it is an end in itself and valuable for its own sake36. (Cushman, Laidler, 1990)

Leisure […] is a mental and spiritual attitude – it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation. It is […] an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul, and is utterly contrary to the ideal of 'worker' […]. Compared with the exclusive ideal of work as activity, leisure implies […] an attitude of non-activity, of inward calm, of silence; it means not being 'busy', but let things happen. Leisure is a form of silence, of that silence which is the prerequisite of the apprehension of reality: only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear. […] For leisure is a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation37. (Pieper, 1952)

Both definitions depict leisure as particular inner state, condition, feeling or attitude, which in general can be called a special mental experience. It is an inner property of the person, a condition subjectively lived through, but it is not automatically associated with available period of free time and it does not inevitably result from some external conditions. The first definition underlines the freedom of leisure, and not in abstract terms, but as a personally experienced state and a feeling of freedom from the constraints of the “basic requirements of existence”. There are similar points to the definitions considered above, only here the focus is on subjective aspects – how it is understood and experienced by the individual instead of on leisure as an activity itself. This perceived freedom from “conditions imposed by necessity” means leisure is not formed a response to the need of coping with the external circumstances and is not guided by the necessity to struggle for the existence

36 Cushman, G., & Laidler, A. (1990). Recreation, leisure and social policy. Occasional Paper № 4. (p. 1). New Zealand: Lincoln University Canterbury, Victoria University Wellington. Retrieved from https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/bitstream/10182/1431/1/prt_op_4.pdf. 37 Pieper, J. (2009). Leisure: The basis of culture; The philosophical act. (p. 46). Ignatius Press.

https://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/bitstream/10182/1431/1/prt_op_4.pdf


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and maintain oneself, but is “intrinsically motivated”, has a meaning and goal in itself and is fulfilled for its own sake. Here we can also refer to the psychological model of Neulinger based on the categories of motivation and perceived state and covering the continuum of experiences from pure job (extrinsic motivation and perceived constraint) to pure leisure (intrinsic motivation and perceived freedom)38. Intrinsic motivation and the perceived state of freedom are important for understanding of leisure, but experience-based models are quite limited as they don’t link the state to the actual behavior and activities of the individual, and leisure becomes either too wide and includes all sorts of experience or too narrow reduced to particular inner state of mind.

The definition by Pieper is beautifully formulated, quite revealing and an unstandard one. It depicts leisure as a very particular kind of mental and spiritual experience – a higher condition of the soul, when one engages in deep contemplation, immerses in oneself and is able to comprehend the outer world in its totality. Though Pieper explicitly asserts that leisure is contrary to work and presupposes the state of not being busy, it is far from idleness and non-activity. Non-business may be compared with disinterestedness in this case and implies an internal freedom from external constraints and pressures of life necessities. Another researcher formulated it as “a relaxation of a tight, defensive hold on the boundaries of the self”39 enabling to achieve what Pieper calls the state of silence or inner calm. In its high realization leisure requires leaving all concerns behind, to be “open to everything”, to be “free and easy” and to reconcile with the world, letting the natural course of things happen (“to leave the reins loose”) 40. Thus leisure leads to the liberation of the human spirit from the mundane concerns of existence, which disturb the mind and distract attention, and opens up unlimited horizons for the true self-cognition and the exploration of the universe. This definition is interesting as it disclosed the meaning of leisure as a rich personal experience arising out of distancing oneself from everyday life's mundane activities and concerns, but it is also rather narrow and reduces leisure to a state of contemplation and peaceful reflection, without connecting it to the actions and activity of the individual.

2.1.2. Integrated concept of leisure

Having considered the three types of definitions of leisure – as a time, as an activity and as an experience – we would like to summarize and suggest an integrated concept of leisure which includes its key features and is relevant for our research. Each type of definition contains significant aspect of leisure: time embraces the objective and measurable side and shows the duration of leisure

38 For the full scheme of the model you can refer to the source: Gallant, K.A. (2010). Feelings of obligation related to volunteering as serious leisure within a communitarian framework (PhD thesis, University of Waterloo). Retrieved from https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/handle/10012/5697/Gallant_Karen.pdf;jsessionid=88844084B093EA2E674EE8CA8DC2CFFC?sequence=1. 39 Wilson, R. N. (1981). The courage to be leisured. Social Forces, 60(2), 285. 40 Pieper, J. (2009). Leisure: The basis of culture; The philosophical act. (p. 47). Ignatius Press.

https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/handle/10012/5697/Gallant_Karen.pdf;jsessionid=88844084B093EA2E674EE8CA8DC2CFFC?sequence=1



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as well as length, frequency and regularity of the particular activity; activity covers individual actions and occupations and the observable behavioral side of leisure; experience grasps the subjective aspect of leisure, including inner personal states, conditions and attitudes, arising in leisure activities, but which are not directly accessible for observation. Therefore I speak about three dimensions of leisure – time, activity and experience, but place the individual and his/her leisure behavior at the centre of the notion of leisure, while putting time and experience in relation to the activity, with time being the objective measurement of leisure activity and experience as its subjective reflection.

As we noticed in the course of analysis, different definitions are not utterly controversial and share some common points. Leisure is similarly viewed as an area lying beyond the occupations performed to satisfy the basic needs of survival, physical existence and provision of the means of subsistence (freedom from the basic requirements of existence). Leisure is not remunerative and directed at material rewards therefore it is characterized by relative freedom from basic necessities and mundane concerns (disinterestedness). It represents an area of activity for the realization of higher non-material needs, thus it becomes the sphere of activity containing the goal and result in itself and fulfilled for its own sake (intrinsic motivation). These features of leisure are reflected in its three dimensions: time signifies a period (can be named free time) which remains for individual disposal after attending to the existence and subsistence activities (work/ studies, self-care, domestic duties); activity refers to the actual actions and behavior in the free time undertaken for its own sake, not aimed at material benefits and not intended to serve basic purposes of existence (leisure activities); experience means the state of being at leisure or being leisured, marked by perceived freedom from external constraints and a sense of detachment from everyday life necessities (leisureliness). Itis important that the combination of three aspects is required to enable leisure to emerge: the first condition is that the person should have free time, but that alone does not suffice; second, the person should also be engaged in a special kind of activity, that we call leisure activity, but even this engagement does not guarantee that leisure takes place; the third component, finishing the construction, is subjective experience, a state of leisureliness, a sense and an attitude of mind, which finally enables leisure to occur.

Features of leisure and its three dimensions/components and their relation to the activities undertaken for existence and subsistence purposes are reflected in the scheme below:


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Scheme 1. Features and components of leisure. Source: scheme by I.A.

2.1.3. Leisure – a realm of freedom in relations of material production

In the definition I tried to go beyond the abstract idea of leisure as an area of freedom and autonomy, devoid of obligation and constraints as it is too unclear and quite confusing. Leisure activities might be associated with obligations sometimes, and this is related to the case of serious leisure specifically as it includes systematic involvement in the pastime and is distinguished by a commitment to it. While some other activities, traditionally viewed as having high degree of duty – for example, work, domestic responsibilities – might have many opportunities for exercising freedom and one’s own choice. Therefore I speak about perceived freedom and perceived constraint and link them to the activity the person is engaged in.

Notion of leisure as a domain universally occupied by freedom and unlimited self-determination was criticized by British sociologist Rojek. He argues that we should depart from what he calls the “formalist assumptions” and place leisure in the historically specific relations of material production and system of power. Leisure should not be approached as “an isolated realm of society” as “it is fully integrated into the power structure of capitalist society”41. Therefore freedom,

41 Rojek, C. (2013 [1985]). Capitalism and leisure theory. (p.100). Routledge.

work/ studies household chores (cleaning, washing, cooking) care-for-the-self (eating, sleeping, washing) care-for-the-family (children, disabled, elderly)

Existence and subsistence activities

Leisureliness

Free time

Intrinsic motivation (higher needs) Disinterestedness (freedom from material concerns) Beyond the basic needs and requirements of existence

Extrinsic motivation Material and mundane interests Satisfaction of basic needs, serving the necessities of existence

Leisure activities

Leisure


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choice, opportunities for self-assertion and actualization do not accompany leisure by default, but are “structured by a variety of socio-economic influences”42. Roberts also underlines that leisure is “highly context-dependent”43 and specific for particular societies, groups, classes and so on. Many investigations may serve as illustrations for this statement: for example, lower classes tend to have unorganized and less complex leisure, high culture devotees are usually people in higher social positions, women generally enjoy less quantity of leisure time than men, what is considered appropriate for a child differs much from what is perceived normal for a middle-aged person, and so on.

Thus leisure should not be automatically associated with freedom and self-determination as it is not a separate sphere and is deeply incorporated into the society, shaped and transformed by various structural factors and sensitive to class, gender, age, ethnicity divisions. The definition of leisure offered in this paper addresses this issue and does not refer to freedom in a universal and absolute sense, but, recognizing the embeddedness of leisure in a whole system of social relations, still leaves some space for freedom - retaining this notion in a more concrete interpretation. Leisure is considered as an activity free from the basic needs and material concerns, performed during the time left after existence and subsistence occupations are fulfilled and accompanied by the state of inner detachment from everyday life, mundane considerations or sense of perceived freedom. On the other hand, leisure is founded on the activities undertaken for survival and physical maintenance purposes, depends on them and is connected to them in different ways.

This understanding of leisure relies on the notions of the “realm of freedom” and the “realm of necessity” introduced by K.Marx44. Realm of necessity is the domain of labor and effort spent in material production in order to survive and maintain physical existence, marked by constraint and necessity. Realm of freedom is a sphere lying outside of material production: “The realm of freedom really begins only where labor determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper […]. It is referred to as “the true realm of freedom, the development of human powers which is an end in itself”. Thus, the realm of necessity constitutes the zone of material production, existing to satisfy basic survival and physical needs, while the realm of freedom is an area placed at one’s disposal and open for the pursuit of non-material needs, including the needs of higher order like self-development and self-expression. But, being separated from the realm of necessity as the material production domain, the realm of freedom is nevertheless dependent and tied to it: “the true realm of freedom […] begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis”. The realm of necessity serves as the foundation for the realm of freedom making possible its existence and development: it can be

42 Ibid., p. 99. 43 Roberts, K. (2006). Leisure in contemporary society. (p. 2). Cabi. 44 Marx, K. (1981[1894]). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 3). (p. 959). London: Penguin. - Here and further in passages about two realms).


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considered as a primary dominant sphere and the realm of freedom as secondary area grounded in and conditioned by the realm of necessity. Another point is that the realm of necessity widens and transforms over time along with the growth of human needs: “This realm of natural necessity expands with his [man’s] development, because his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at the same time”, but it preserves its character and constraining nature and “always remains a realm of necessity”. As the realm of freedom is founded on and dependent on the realm of necessity, they change and transform together; they constitute specific configurations in certain historical moments; but their principal relation to each other remains the same.

This division of human activity in two opposite spheres was challenged by other scholars (H.Marcuse, J.Baudrillard45), who argued that interdependency of the realms goes much deeper and the realm of freedom is subject to the same processes of alienation and constraint operating in the realm of necessity up to the point of cancelling the realm of freedom altogether as a mere extension of the realm of necessity. We consider this view as not relevant for our purposes and, recognizing the dependence of the realm of freedom on the realm of necessity and their interconnectedness, do not reduce one to the other and use this dichotomy as a major starting point of distinguishing leisure from other activities.

We differentiate leisure and existence and subsistence occupations, satisfaction of basic needs and wants of higher non-material character, granting relative freedom to the sphere of leisure and not linking it directly to the purposes of survival and maintenance of living. Based on this division, we formulate more specific definition of leisure distinguishing its three components (free time, leisure activity and leisure experience) and identifying its main features (freedom from basic requirements of existence, disinterestedness, and intrinsic motivation).

Rooting leisure in the existence and subsistence part of human activity, we become aware that leisure has always been inseparable from human life since ancient times as long as man was able to keep himself alive and maintain his physical existence. But specific forms and patterns of leisure have been changing along with the development of human needs and growth of the material production. Therefore the leisure of communities of hunter tribes is different from agrarian societies; and the leisure of a Greek polis differs from that of the peasants in a medieval town. Independent of the type of society we are dealing with, provision and production of the means of subsistence by productive labor has been the major part of the realm of necessity, ensuring the physical survival and maintenance of living. This way leisure should be considered primarily in connection with, and in opposition to, work, as changes in the character and organization of work have a profound impact on the

45 Marcuse, H. (2001). The individual in the great society. In D. Kellnor (Ed.), Towards a critical theory of society. New York and London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/individual.pdf.

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character and organization of leisure46. As Veal formulated it: “leisure is very much subject to the effects of the changing national and international economy and their resultant effects on work”47.

In the modern society productive work takes places largely in the form of paid employment or waged labor. Specificity of modern leisure emerges as a consequence of modern work or waged labor. As a result of industrialization and expansion of capitalism its organization became much distinct from the pre-modern one and is characterized by the compartmentalization and rationalization. It means that labor began to get temporarily and spatially segregated and placed under regulation and control: “paid work is usually done at specific times, at workplaces and under work-specific authority”48. Labor is now done according to a working schedule and workers are expected to comply with the working discipline, without spontaneous breaks for the rest or absences without permission. The process of work is also divided into stages and tasks, assigned to individual employees or group of workers, so that labor is exercised as intensively, effectively and productively as possible. In general, modern organization of work reinforces a certain rhythm and pace of life, structures the time and imposes a certain sequence of activities. It moves work to a specifically arranged space and places it within a fixed period of the day appropriating the worker’s time by putting it under the enterprise's control. Compartmentalization of work consequently means the change in leisure, which also becomes allocated to a specific part of the day or week. So we observe that while “the distinction of work and leisure is not modern, it’s the social separation of the two that has taken new forms”49. Under new organization of productive labor, industrial or fordist organization, free time is created as a separate zone from work, lying at the disposal of the individual and not directly constrained by work discipline and control. It was a pre-condition of differentiating leisure as a phenomenon and its formation in the current form.

Having once emerged, leisure has been changing along with the sphere of material production throughout the 20th century, growing in quantity, becoming more diversified and complex, adopting new forms, but its main traits remained the same. Major changes started to happen in the character and organization of work during the last 30-40 years, therefore leisure is undergoing big transformations as well and is argued to be gradually substituted by so called “post-modern leisure”. These changes have their origins in the restructuring of the economy, typically referred to as deindustrialization. It was caused by the technological development, massive introduction of machines and increasing automatization of the production process, increasing the productivity of labor. It led to the decline in the number of workers employed in agricultural and manufacturing industries and resulted in the large expansion of the service 46 Work and leisure, their relation, opposition and links to each other have been subject of enormous number of investigations, book and articles. Here are some of the prominent works in the area: Haworth, J. T., & Iso-Ahola, S. E. (1997). Work, leisure and well-being. Psychology Press.; Anderson, N. (1974). Man's work and leisure (Vol. 4). Brill Archive. 47 Haworth, J. T., & Veal, A. J. (Eds.). (2004). Work and leisure. (pp. 5-6). Psychology Press. 48 Roberts, K. (2006). Leisure in contemporary society. (p. 2). Cabi. 49 Slater, D. (1998). Work/ Leisure. In Jenks, C. (Ed.). (1998). Core sociological dichotomies. (p. 392). London: Sage.


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sector and emergence of the knowledge-based economy.

As “services are based on the continual exchange of information and knowledges” and as “the production of services results in no material and durable good”50, labor ceased to be primarily manual and acquires a non-material character. Immaterial labor means that individual invests his/her personal qualities in the production process: for instance, one applies intellectual and analytical abilities, when dealing with information; uses communication skills to find understanding with a client or a colleague; relies on emotional expertise or performs emotional labor to manage the feelings of others and one’s own emotional flows51. Some authors argue that the whole subjectivity of the person gets involved in the production process, and the personality in general becomes one of the crucial production factors52. The outcome is that the organization of work has changed, as immaterial labor cannot be rationalized, regulated and controlled in the same way as manual work. Emotional, communicational and intellectual efforts can hardly be standardized at the working process; therefore time and other assessment criteria appropriate for manual labor can no longer serve as the measure of its productivity: “labor […] is not subject to the measurement in units of time”53 and “by formerly established measurements and norms”54.

Companies adopt a policy of flexible working hours or even reduce formal working time as well as allowing distant work and tolerating physical absence of the worker. New technologies enable them to perform more tasks outside of working time and workplace, which may lead to overwork, increased workload and psychological stress, but, on the other side, may also grant the flexibility to “integrate paid work with other non-work activities”55. The crucial consequence is that labor “goes beyond its allotted limits. It is now tied to the all life time”56: working time and free time are not strictly divided any more as well as workplace and space for private affairs. Thus, the temporal and spatial segmentation characterizing modern work erode, and the boundaries between work and leisure become blurred.

Another point is that personal qualities and abilities, which are valuable for production, are not constant properties of the individual and include much more than proper education and knowledge of a particular field. They encompass a variety of intangible skills and capacities which need to be specifically developed and cultivated. It “requires a good deal of non-paid work”57, and

50 Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2010). Empire. Harvard University Press. 51 Three respective types of immaterial labour were distinguished by Negri and Hardt: communicative, analytical/ symbolic and affective (Hardt, Negri. Empire, 2010). The concept of emotional labour was elaborated in detail by Hoschild (Rojek, C. (2010). The labour of leisure: The culture of free time. (p. 22). Sage Publications). 52 Lazzarato, M. (1996). Immaterial labor. Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics. (pp. 132-146). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved from http://www.e-flux.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.-Maurizio-Lazzarato-Immaterial-Labor.pdf. 53 Горц А. Знание, стоимость и капитал. К критике экономики знаний // Логос. – 2007. – Т. 4. – №. 61. – С. 6. 54 Ibid., p.12. 55 Link, S. (2009). Work in the post industrial world. EBSCO Research Starters. (p. 4). EBSCO Publishing Inc. Retrieved from http://www.dswleads.com/Ebsco/Work%20in%20the%20Post%20Industrial%20World.pdf. 56 Польрэ Б. Двусмысленности когнитивного капитализма //Логос. – 2007. – №. 4. – С. 78. 57 Rojek, C. (2013). Is Marx still relevant to the study of leisure?. Leisure Studies,32(1), 24.

http://www.e-flux.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.-Maurizio-Lazzarato-Immaterial-Labor.pdf

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leisure becomes one of the major sites where this development of personality takes place. This way leisure becomes an extension and supplementary sphere to work, “foundation of labor”58 serving as a factory for the cultivation of the human faculties necessary for immaterial production.

The process of desegregation of work and leisure is also reflected in the transformation of the patterns of employment and working arrangements. Enterprises seek to maximize the effectiveness of labor and to intensify it, but former regulations are not valid any more. The result of immaterial labor depends only on the people performing it, on their motivation and application of their abilities, therefore other ways of stimulating employees are introduced. For example, task and result-oriented assessment techniques are implemented; part-time, flexible hours and fixed-term or temporary contracts have become more common; the practice of outsourcing tasks to an external professional and project-based employment are also spreading; in general it is described as casualization or flexibilization of labour. It creates the situation of uncertainty and insecurity in relation to working position and leads to more intense competition between specialists. Some of the outcomes are indeed the improved performance, overwork and willingness of employees to invest much in work to ensure future employment, but low commitment, stress, conflicts are unintended consequences of such a strategy59. Casualization of employment, and high levels of competition on the labor market, force workers to use their spare time for work purposes, both for fulfilling the working tasks or educating oneself, developing special competence or expertise. Thus we observe again that leisure suffers and seems to be squeezed under the colonizing influence of the paid employment.

What does it imply for our understanding of leisure? What consequences does the erosion of boundaries between work and leisure have? It is clear that deindustrialization and the development of a knowledge-based economy were accompanied by the spread and increasing importance of immaterial labor leading to the reorganization of work. In our terms it means that the existence and subsistence activities or the realm of necessity are evolving and restructuring, growing together with the human needs and now starting to incorporate a much wider range of necessities, including their non-material aspects. But leisure activities or the realm of freedom are not disappearing, instead they are changing, as well as the relation of two domains to each other. Therefore we state that 1) it is not possible to speak only about leisure in the modern sense as situated in a clearly demarcated segment of free time in opposition to working time; 2) work is de-compartmentalized and unevenly diffused throughout the life space and time, colonizing the domain of former free time; 3) leisure is becoming increasingly involved in production, including the contribution to the maintenance of the personal subjectivity and cultivation of qualities, involved in immaterial labor. To some extent we can say that leisure tends to resemble work, and work is inclined to resemble leisure, that

58 Rojek, C. (2013). Is Marx still relevant to the study of leisure?. Leisure Studies,32(1), 24. 59 Crowley, M., Tope, D., Chamberlain, L. J., & Hodson, R. (2010, August). Neo-Taylorism at work: Occupational change in the post-Fordist era. Social Problems, 57(3), 440.


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both spheres are coming closer together and now it is a more challenging task to differentiate between the two. Still we claim that leisure can never be totally determined by the existence and subsistence activities and reduced to them. Using Marxian terms, we can say that the realm of necessity has expanded to integrate the satisfaction of a wider range of human needs, which leads to the fuller participation and deeper incorporation of the individual in production, with his mental and emotional abilities. But it does not mean that the realm of freedom lying outside of basic necessities has dissolved, on the contrary, based on a larger ground, it has a potential to grow into a much more complex, diverse and rewarding leisure.

As for serious leisure, it might serve as a particular example of the redrawing boundaries between work and leisure as it is distinguished by such features that are assigned mostly to work activities (i.e. regularity and substantial effort, obligation and pursuing a career). Though we do not fully agree with Stebbins, who places serious leisure within the domain of free time characterized as “uncommitted time, discretionally time, choosing time”60, we nevertheless treat serious leisure as a special type of leisure activity. Stebbins distinguished it from work “identified with earning a living” and “existence time” serving the satisfaction of basic physiological needs (eating, sleeping etc)61. This vision is close to our understanding and we argue that serious leisure should be considered as leisure as it is not undertaken for survival or subsistence purposes and is not aimed at remuneration so emerges beyond the realm of necessity. Involvement in serious leisure is motivated by the content of activity itself, intrinsically, and is accompanied by the perceived freedom from mundane concerns.

2.2. Serious Leisure: Concept, Characteristics and Model

2.2.1. Serious leisure: definition and main features

Serious leisure is a notion which was initially formulated and introduced by the Canadian sociologist Robert A. Stebbins, University of Calgary, who published a paper under the title “Serious leisure perspective” in 198262. The elaboration of the concept was the result of several years of grounded theory ethnographic research project devoted to the study of various amateur communities, including people interested in music, theatre, archeology, astronomy and baseball. Stebbins, being an amateur musician for most of his life himself, realized that amateurs were a special group in society, which was not paid sufficient attention to in leisure studies, and having an intention to fill this gap, began his studies of amateurs in 197363. He noticed that they perceived their activities as being specific and different from what the majority of people do in 60 Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Amateurs, professionals, and serious leisure. (p. 4). McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP. 61 Ibid., p. 5. 62 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 251-272. 63 See the website for more detail on serious leisure research: Website on serious leisure perspective. Retrieved from http://www.seriousleisure.net/historystebbins-bio.html.

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their free time and expressed a “serious orientation towards leisure”64. These activities were named “serious” as this word was frequently used by the respondents themselves and was aimed at expressing “the earnestness, sincerity, importance, and carefulness” with which individuals engaged in their pastimes, but seriousness was not associated with “gravity, solemnity, joylessness, distress, and anxiety”65. Later it became evident that people with hobbies and volunteers demonstrate the same attitude to their pastimes: thus three types of activities were distinguished in serious leisure: amateurism, hobbyism and volunteering. Stebbins came to the idea that leisure was not a homogeneous domain, which, though occupied by different activities, did not comply with the universal description of a “happy, carefree refuge”66 experience, but that there are several modes of leisure, marked by significant differences in the character of activity, motivation of behavior and its consequences. The categories of serious leisure and casual leisure emerged, with serious leisure being at the centre of the investigation, the phenomenon in focus and the primary term of interest. Casual leisure was used as a background notion as “seriousness is most effectively examined as a dichotomous quality, with casual or unserious leisure as its opposite”67, embracing all other kinds of “popular” or common pastimes not covered by serious leisure.

Though the serious leisure story as a concept starts from the article of 1982, the definition was firstly articulated in another, much larger work of Stebbins published in 1992. Once formulated, this definition hasn’t been subject to significant updates or amendments. The author continued to use it in the same sense in his later works and the notion was also adopted by other scholars, therefore it became quite classical in sociological literature.

Specifically, serious leisure is defined as “the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity that is sufficiently substantial and interesting for the participant to find a career in the acquisition and expression of its special skills and knowledge”68. Thus serious leisure is associated with systematic character of pastime and presupposes that the activity is complex, rich in content and meaningful for the person. An important feature of serious leisure is the possibility to pursue a career: due to being quite sophisticated and not easy to master, it necessarily leads to gradual improvement of particular abilities and acquisition of expertise in the chosen sphere. “Career” means striving for achievement, moving from one goal to the other, extending one’s capacities and creating the feeling of growth and progress, which can be also accompanied by increasing respect and recognition from others. Career also presupposes long-term engagement and advancement in the activity and can be divided in several stages: initiation, development, maintenance, and

64 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 251. 65 Stebbins, R. A. (2004, November). Erasing the line between work and leisure in North America. In Proceedings of the Leisure and Liberty in North America Conference, University of Paris IV, Paris, France. (p. 8). Retrieved from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~stebbins/leisurelibertyinnpap.pdf. 66 Stebbins, R.A. Serious leisure…p. 251. 67 Ibid., p. 255. 68 Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Amateurs, professionals, and serious leisure. (p. 3). McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP.

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decline69. The need to cultivate specific abilities and acquire knowledge in the certain field itself constitutes a significant point in the definition of serious leisure even outside of the notion of a career: serious leisure can only be properly enjoyed and sometimes even accessed through the set of special skills and knowledge, which means that it does not stand at ready disposal for anyone and requires preparation and training.

The characteristics of serious leisure indicated in the definition of serious leisure are also included in its main features, which were formulated and specified in 1982. Since then, despite the abundant research on the topic, they have remained largely the same and include the following six points: perseverance, tendency to develop a career, effort based on special skills and knowledge, durable benefits, unique ethos, identification70.

2.2.2. Perseverance, career and effort: investments and costs

Perseverance means that people tend to stay engaged in their favorite pastime for a long period of time despite the physical, psychological, communicational difficulties, discomforts, confusions and even dangers they might encounter: for example, fear of stage for theatre participants, hard digging work for archeologists or physical injuries for sportsmen. These difficulties are named by Stebbins as “costs” of serious leisure pursuits. They stand in opposition to the benefits of serious leisure and can be even called negative rewards as they constitute the dissatisfactory experience while benefits bring joy and satisfaction. Though not included in the list of main features of serious leisure, costs are very important for understanding its specificity as they accompany all serious leisure pursuits and are connected to the other distinctive traits of the activity. For instance, perseverance presupposes finding ways of tolerating the costs or developing strategies to reduce or cope with them, but without giving up the activity itself. Costs also contribute to the formation of another significant feature of serious leisure: unique ethos, which will be considered below. When people encounter similar difficulties, but which are also quite specific for the chosen activity, it acts as a factor uniting them into the community, simultaneously setting them apart from the rest of the population. It happens because going through the difficulties and learning to cope with the costs leads individuals to realize their own particularity in pursuing their pastimes and difference from other people not involved in it, but, on the other hand, shared experience of hardships with other persons engaged in the same activity creates a sense of commonality and solidarity binding them together. The notion of costs is also necessary for exploring the role of serious leisure in the biographical project of young people. Readiness to tolerate significant difficulties in their pastime may indicate the importance of the activity and the

69 Lin, W. C. (2009). A study of casual and serious golfers: Testing serious leisure theory (Doctoral dissertation, Oklahoma State University). Retrieved from https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/7484/School%20of%20Teaching%20and%20Curriculum%20Leadership_196.pdf?sequence=1. 70 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 256-257.

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set of priorities of the individual, while the preference for an activity with lower costs may signal its diminishing significance for the person.

Stebbins classified costs into three types, but underlined that they tend to be specific for different kinds of activities: disappointments (absence of anticipated benefits or failure of hopes), dislikes (problems requiring the significant adjustment from participant – for example, incompetent organization, lack of motivation among other participants) and tensions (stresses – for instance, stage fright, exams etc)71. Though this classification reflects the material of several years of amateur communities studies, its drawback is that it might be relevant for other types of serious leisure. Another limitation is that it is closely tied to the collected data and therefore is more descriptive than analytical; it also seems to be formed on the basis of intersecting criteria and is not comprehensive enough. That is why I would suggest using another typology which was introduced in the investigation of horse riding and where serious leisure costs are divided into two types: primary and secondary72. Primary costs are required for the participation in the activity and serve as its precondition (the author speaks of monetary and time costs, although there might be other kinds as well), while secondary arise in the course, as a side-effect or a result of serious leisure and are further classified into physical (injuries), emotional (anxiety, stress, fear) and social costs (isolation, termination of the relation with partners or family members, tensions with friends and colleagues). The individual is more or less aware of the primary costs and consciously decides to endure them; secondary costs, on the contrary, are ordinarily not expected and represent negative consequences of serious leisure. The second classification is quite helpful for my research as it provides a sound basis for understanding the essence of costs and differentiating between anticipated and unexpected costs, costs as pre-requisites and costs as consequences of participation. The point is how they are approached and dealt with by young people, how costs affect and transform their involvement in serious leisure and how these impact on their decisions at different life stages.

The development of the career as a prominent feature of serious leisure was already mentioned above. An additional point, vital for its understanding and associated with a career as well as with perseverance is effort “based on special knowledge, training or skills”73. It often means perpetual and regular effort, requiring considerable time inputs as well as emotional and intellectual contributions. Thus we understand effort as being realized in the emotional, intellectual, physical activities the person is undertaking to start and maintain the involvement in serious leisure. Stebbins refers to these personal contributions as “investments”74 thus interpreting time, energy and emotions in economic terms as resources that people are spending on their free time

71 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 88). Calgary: Detselig. 72 Butler, E. (2010). Equestrianism: Serious leisure and intersubjectivity. (MA thesis, Colorado State University). (p. 117). Retrieved from http://digitool.library.colostate.edu///exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/L2V4bGlicmlzL2R0bC9kM18xL2FwYWNoZV9tZWRpYS8xMTExOTg=.pdf. 73 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 256. 74 Stebbins, R. A. After work…p. 114.

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activities in order to gain valuable benefits. The notion of investments resembles the notion of costs, which also sounds quite economic, but we would like to differentiate between the two, though they have some points in common and are connected to each other. For instance, primary costs of serious leisure, time and money, which are necessary pre-conditions of participation in serious leisure, can be conceptualized as investments as they represent resources or some valuable things needed before the activity can take place. But secondary costs along with benefits, their counterpart, stand in opposition to investments as they represent an outcome of the activity, something one gets from serious leisure, while investments are contributions into the activity or something one gives or puts into it. Thus, speaking about costs, we will refer only to secondary ones further on and, using the classification from Butler’s study of horse riding, divide costs into three types: physical, psychological (emotional, intellectual) and social costs. As for the contributions people make into their hobby, we can differentiate at least two types: tangible (time, finances, equipment etc) and intangible (physical, emotional, communicational and intellectual effort). Here is a scheme to summarize the discussion above:

Scheme 2. Investments and costs of serious leisure. Source: scheme by I.A.

Using economic terms to describe serious leisure and its features is rather characteristic as it presupposes that human beings act as rational or even market actors calculating his/her expenses and profits with careful consideration and efficiency. Bearing in mind that serious leisure does not depend on material and financial advantages the person is able to extract from it75, the notions of investment and cost underline that people are engaged in evaluations of their effort and calculations of time and energy spent on hobby. People tend to manage and control their serious leisure inputs and outputs, trying to maintain the optimal and most satisfactory extent of involvement. Exploring the case of barbershop singing76 Stebbins found that rewards of serious leisure are substantial enough and generally outweigh the costs justifying the time and effort invested in the chosen activity thus generating a kind of “profit” and encouraging participants to stay engaged. But other studies discovered that “profit-hypothesis” does not work in many cases77 and people

75 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 258. 76 Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Costs and rewards in barbershop singing. Leisure Studies,11(2), 123-133. 77 For example: Jones, I. (2000). A model of serious leisure identification: The case of football fandom. Leisure Studies, 19(4), 283-298.; Lamont, M., Kennelly, M., & Moyle, B. (2014). Costs and perseverance in serious leisure careers. Leisure Sciences, 36(2), 144-160.

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are not always able to keep the balance and ensure that benefits exceed the costs. Nevertheless they still continue with their hobby by developing special behavioral strategies to endure unrewarding experiences.

We should also add that that people do not only compare the benefits with the costs and estimate satisfaction against negative consequences of serious leisure, but also take into consideration their initial contributions to the activity. Thus, according to the “profit hypothesis”, the benefits of serious leisure should be sufficiently appealing to stimulate investments from the beginning and then significant enough to compensate the costs and lead to further investments. But as evidence proves that people do not behave in such a rational manner, we can expect that even when rewards fail to justify the investments and cover costs, the involvement in serious leisure may remain. This excessive “spending” on a favorite pastime can be an indicator of the level of personal dedication to the chosen activity and its importance in the life of the individual. Taking into account the future dimension, we can find an explanation for this: people might invest more and tolerate heavier costs because they anticipate receiving an ample remuneration on a later stage, and expected, though illusory, rewards make current difficulties justified. In this way, an evaluation of investments, costs and benefits does not only refer to the present situation, but includes envisioning the future and serves as a basis for current decision-making as well as formulating plans for the future. That is why it is crucial for the current research: looking at what contributions young people make in their serious leisure, what costs they have to bear and what benefits they derive from it or expect to get in the future, we can form an understanding of their vision of themselves and their life trajectory. In addition, calculations and estimations themselves indicate a conscious and reflective attitude to one’s own life which is an important aspect of biographical projecting itself.

2.2.3. Commitment and obligation

As we mentioned above, investments and contributions into serious leisure, as well as readiness to put up with its costs, are connected with the other meaningful category for characterizing serious leisure – commitment or dedication. Stebbins speaks about it in the following way:

“All serious leisure is characterized by a significant commitment as expressed in regimentation and systematization. This commitment is measured by sizable investments of time, energy and emotions. This marginalized serious leisure participants in a world dominated by casual leisure.”78

Stebbins does not define the commitment explicitly, but links it to regimentation and systematization as certain structural characteristics of serious leisure as an activity and argues that its level can be determined by the amount of personal contributions. Regimentation means regular engagement in the favorite activity (for instance, a rehearsal once a week) and formation of a certain regime of life.

78 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 114) Calgary: Detselig.


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Systematization implies that structuring takes place inside the serious leisure activity: development of organizational patterns, institutional scheduling and ordering of the activity (for example, classes in music school as a particular organizational setting with certain rules and procedures)79.

Commitment is connected with another feature of serious leisure, especially relating to amateur activities: obligations. It is not clearly listed among the basic six characteristics, but is also mentioned by Stebbins80 and is quite significant for understanding its special nature. Obligation arises partly from regimentation and systematization as when serious leisure becomes a routine component of individual lifestyle and is incorporated into organizational structures, expectations regarding participation in serious leisure emerge: it ceases to be a mere spontaneous action, but is transformed into a rule, and others expect the individual to be a regular participant as well as the individual himself/ herself feels the responsibility to take part. It sets serious leisure apart from casual leisure, which is more fragmented and even frivolous as to give rise to considerable organizational constraints and regulations. The obligatory component of serious leisure brings it closer to work as a type of experience, and many respondents in Stebbins’ studies confirmed it is customary for them to refer to their leisure in terms of work81. On the other side, the voluntary engagement in serious leisure still remains, as these obligations are not caused by existence or subsistence concerns and are conceived as being of one’s own choice, imposed by one’s free will. It may provide an explanation why in some circumstances people are willing to endure even very tiring, intensive, monotonous or physically demanding work required by their hobby – as is illustrated by the case of amateur archeologists, who are not troubled by digging and dealing with dirt and soil and can do it for many hours in all weather conditions – precisely because these obligations are taken upon oneself voluntarily and are perceived as the result of one’s own decision.

According to our view, commitment is a vital category for distinguishing serious leisure which was not paid sufficient attention to in Stebbins’ conceptual framework. He applies it as a side-notion and does not fully and clearly disclose its meaning. On the one hand, commitment resembles perseverance as a feature of serious leisure, has an obligatory aspect, on the other hand, it is tied to the regular and institutionally embedded leisure activity and in addition can be estimated by the amount of investments into the activity. To clarify the relations between the terms and define commitment, we apply to the concept offered by T.Buchanan82. Based on extensive analysis of social and psychological research, he identified three components of commitment: behavioral, described as “consistent or focused behavior” and “rejection of alternative behavior”; “side bets” which mean involving something valuable to support the behavioral consistency (investing time, effort, buying equipment)

79 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 25. 80 Ibid, p. 255. 81 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 28). Calgary: Detselig. 82 Buchanan, T. (1985). Commitment and leisure behavior: A theoretical perspective. Leisure Sciences, 7(4), 401-420.


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and affective attachment83. Behavioral consistency which includes the persistence of activity over time and willingness to cope with some sacrifices is actually precisely what is implied under perseverance as a distinctive trait of serious leisure. Side bets are in fact investments or contributions to the activity, which were also discussed in detail above. Finally, the only new element is affective attachment also called attitudinal manifestations84 that means positive emotional attitudes towards the activity itself, the role the person fulfills and/or the organization where the activity takes place. Taking Buchanan’s concept of commitment as a starting point, we transform it for the purposes of our research: we leave the behavioral and affective component of commitment, but put aside investments or contributions as a specific matter subject to a separate analysis. Drawing on the study of organizational commitment85, we would add one more dimension – normative – which means an obligation to stay involved or a certain extent of compulsory engagement. Thus commitment in our investigation is a wide category comprised of three main components – behavioral consistency or perseverance, affective attachment or emotional attitude and normative component or obligation, with regimentation and systematization reflecting and supporting the consistency and obligatory character of the committed behavior.

2.2.4. Benefits of serious leisure

The next necessary feature of serious leisure is durable benefits or main consequences of this activity - which also function as motivators: being the anticipated sources of satisfaction for the person and which represent the positive experience in opposition to costs. Stebbins identified eight main rewards associated with serious leisure: self-actualization or self-fulfillment, self-development or self-enrichment, self-expression, regeneration or renewal of self, feelings of accomplishment, enhancement of self-image or self-esteem, social interaction and belongingness, and lasting physical products of the activity (for example, a written text, a picture or another object of art) 86. The first one, self-fulfillment understood as “having realized, to the fullest one’s gifts and character, one’s potential” is considered to be “the most powerful”87 and central to serious leisure experience, while the importance of other characteristics can vary depending on the type of activity – for example, lasting physical products are not of major significance for some groups of volunteers88.

There is one additional benefit indicated separately – self-gratification – which is not an exclusive property of serious leisure and is also attributable to casual leisure. Self-gratification received different interpretations in the works of

83 Buchanan, T. (1985). Commitment and leisure behavior: A theoretical perspective. Leisure Sciences, 7(4), 403-406. 84 Scott, D., & Godbey, G. (1994). Recreation specialization in the social world of contract bridge. Journal of Leisure Research, 26, 52. Retrieved from http://www.bridgeguys.com/pdf/Newspaper/RecreationSpecialization.pdf. 85 Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human resource management review, 1(1), 61-89. 86 Ibid, p. 21.; Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 257. 87 Stebbins, R. A. (2008). Right leisure: Serious, casual, or project-based? NeuroRehabilitation, 23(4), 336. 88 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure…p. 257.

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Stebbins, from “pure fun”89 and “pleasure-oriented reward”90, a property of intrinsically hedonistic unserious leisure, to a “combination of superficial enjoyment and deep fulfillment”91. Though the second version sounds more substantial and points at “deep” character of satisfaction, naming it “fulfillment” and thus linking it to the most important benefit of serious leisure, it is still considered to be the least lasting and durable reward. It can lead us to the assumption that different degrees of intensity of self-gratification and its emotional tones might be distinguished. Probably, we can speak about several types of self-gratification, also possibly dependent on the level of involvement, with some deeper and richer types probably associated predominantly with serious leisure, but there is no clear evidence on this matter so far. Stebbins only introduces “thrills” as a special type of “extraordinary, though momentary rewards”92 or peak moments, and connects them more with self-expression and self-fulfillment, but the intense emotional reactions during thrills definitely indicate that self-gratification accompanies these moments as well.

Some other benefits can also be considered, not as exclusive products of serious leisure, but as an outcome of casual free time activities as well, as is evident with the case of social interaction and feeling of belonging. Engaging in small talk, attending a family dinner and celebrating friend’s birthday in a bar are good examples of unserious leisure (“social conversation” according to the typology elaborated by Stebbins93), but they still enable social interaction to take place and can contribute to the formation of the sense of belonging. But the point is that communication in casual leisure is more superficial, fragmentary and lacks solid basis for coherent and meaningful social interaction, while serious leisure, marked by commitment and effort, being more massive, stable and regular, is able to foster more lasting, rewarding and substantial social ties.

In this respect serious leisure corresponds to the concept of philosophical leisure elaborated by A.Holba94. This notion aims to emphasize that some forms of free time activities characterized by contemplation and concentration on the action, immersion in oneself and playful inner dialog, can be a powerful tool for overcoming phatic communication that is formal, superficial and poor in content. A.Holba argues that by its intrinsic features philosophical leisure enables the individual to achieve a better self-understanding and self-development, leading to the revival of interest in the other person and cultivation of ideas, which, in combination, serves as a necessary ground for idea-laden communication. Though not included in the traditional definition of serious leisure, and having different connotations, elements of philosophical leisure, characterizing the process of internal work taking place within the person, can be found in serious leisure activity. Besides, the effects of philosophical leisure (better understanding of the self, self-enrichment and self- 89 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 257. 90 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 85). Calgary: Detselig.. 91 Stebbins, R. A. (2008). Right leisure: Serious, casual, or project-based? NeuroRehabilitation, 23(4), 336. 92 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work…p. 87. 93 Ibid, p. 337. 94 Holba, A. (2007). Philosophical leisure: Recuperative practice for human communication (Vol. 55). Marquette University Press.


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development) resemble some rewards of serious leisure, therefore serious leisure might be perceived as a philosophical leisure to some extent. In this way, the notion of philosophical leisure, paying attention to the inner mechanisms being driven by engagement in leisure activity, provides an explanation why serious leisure can become a rich source of rewarding, meaningful and fruitful interaction, while casual leisure is associated mostly with fragmented and inconsistent communication.

The interesting point regarding the benefits of serious leisure is that all of them, except the two latter ones, are concentrated on the individual and the self and are referred to personally experienced states and subjective perceptions of the effects of activity. On the one hand, it reveals the individual perspective on serious leisure, on the other hand, this view seem rather limited as it does not go beyond the individual and attempt to look at outcomes of serious leisure on communal or societal level. This was partly reconsidered in later works of Stebbins95, who classified the rewards in two types: personal and social. While personal type constitutes the main body of the rewards and remained largely the same as initially formulated in 1982 (only financial return was added, though always being stressed as far less important), social benefits include social attraction (desire to be a part of appealing “social world” of the activity), group accomplishment (joint effort and group achievement) and group maintenance and development (sense of helping and feeling of one’s necessity)96. But even the updated and extended list of benefits has a tendency to be focused on the individual and social rewards are also discussed in regards to what it brings and means for the person. Thus communal and societal benefits of serious leisure are an area with little attention from scientific community97 and might be of interest for further research, although for the current research benefits experienced on the level of the person is of major concern.

Scheme 3. Investments, costs and benefits of serious leisure. Source: scheme by I.A.

95 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 84). Calgary: Detselig.; Stebbins, R. A. (2004). Between work and leisure: A study of the common ground of two separate worlds. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 96 Lin, W. C. (2009). A study of casual and serious golfers: Testing serious leisure theory (Doctoral dissertation, Oklahoma State University). (p. 19). Retrieved from https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/7484/School%20of%20Teaching%20and%20Curriculum%20Leadership_196.pdf?sequence=1. 97 There is a limited research on this topic, for instance Gallant, K., Arai, S., & Smale, B. (2013). Serious leisure as an avenue for nurturing community. Leisure Sciences, 35(4), 320-336.

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Another issue is that durable benefits have been addressed in descriptive terms and are barely analyzed in regard to relations and links between them or hierarchy of importance in serious leisure. Stebbins only indicates that self-actualization is of crucial importance compared to other benefits and puts self-gratification in the last place as the least durable and specific reward. This view could be questioned as sense of intense self-gratification accompanies and may be even considered as a by-product or necessary component of self-fulfillment. Other benefits stand in complex relations to each other as well: for example, successful social interaction in a group might serve as a condition for self-expression and self-actualization of is members, while enhancement of self-image and positive self-esteem can be the outcome of both and these in turn have an impact on communication with other people. Thus some benefits might be tied together and form a sort of “rewarding circle”, when one outcome of serious leisure fosters and encourages the emergence of another one.

The nature and number of benefits also depends on other factors, for instance, on the specificity of serious leisure activity, group of people engaged in it, type or depth of involvement and stage of leisure career. One study revealed that regeneration of self, feelings of accomplishment, enhancement of self-image, and social interaction was the most important and common benefit for horse riders98. Another investigation based on quantitative methods found that self-enjoyment is the most significant benefit for serious golfers99. Research on women engaged in airplane piloting demonstrated that benefits derived from serious leisure activity vary for independent, interdependent and dependent pilots. Categories were distinguished according to how women began their hobby: by themselves, together with their partner or after their partner was involved in piloting for a long period of time. The study showed that the first category expressed more self-oriented benefits (also called intrinsic or personal), the third – more other-oriented benefits (extrinsic or social), and the second reported both kinds of outcomes100.

The typology of women engaged in serious piloting resembles the classification of the levels of involvement in serious leisure suggested by Stebbins. He differentiates several categories depending on regularity and perseverance with which individuals pursue the activity: devotees, participants, and dabblers101. While devotees are marked by commitment to their hobby, practice it systematically and for a long period of time and invest significant effort into it, participants are not so dedicated to their pastime, are not ready to struggle hard

98 Butler, E. (2010). Equestrianism: Serious leisure and intersubjectivity. (MA thesis, Colorado State University). (p. 116). Retrieved from http://digitool.library.colostate.edu///exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/L2V4bGlicmlzL2R0bC9kM18xL2FwYWNoZV9tZWRpYS8xMTExOTg=.pdf. 99 Lin, W. C. (2009). A Study of casual and serious golfers: Testing serious leisure theory (Doctoral dissertation, Oklahoma State University). (p. 106). Retrieved from https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/7484/School%20of%20Teaching%20and%20Curriculum%20Leadership_196.pdf?sequence=1. 100 Shupe, F.L. (2010 ). The Personal and social benefits of airplane piloting as a serious leisure activity for women (MA Thesis, University of Louisville). (p. 69). Retrieved from http://digital.library.louisville.edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd/id/1961/filename/4758.pdf. 101 Lin, W. C. (2009). A Study of casual…pp. 28-29.





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for better results and take more pleasure from social interaction; finally, dabblers are located on the edge of serious leisure as their involvement is not very systematic, they tend to be content exercising little effort therefore they might lack the necessary knowledge and skills for proper engagement and risk being excluded from the activity. Here we see that the level of involvement also implies different effort and dedication to serious leisure and might be associated with a different attitude: with more expressed orientation towards intrinsic or personal benefits or extrinsic or social rewards. Thus the number and composition of benefits significantly vary depending on the extent of involvement as well as other factors.

It is noteworthy for current research that Stebbins mentions no benefits that go beyond the inner personal experience of serious leisure and are connected with other spheres of human activity (work, family life) or influence individual’s life in general. Also, when dealing with the outcomes for the self concerning self-image or self-development, the consequences on the level of personality as a whole or sense of selfhood are barely explored. Both aspects are important for understanding the role of serious leisure in the biographical project. Therefore our research seeks to determine what are the benefits impacting other areas of life outside of leisure and which are important for the person’s understanding of the self and vision of his/ her life.

The next important feature is unique ethos or unique character or spirit, which is defined as “subcultures composed of special beliefs, values, moral principles, norms, and performance standards”102. It means that people engaged in serious leisure form a special kind of social organization, which Stebbins characterizes as diffuse and “formless social entity”103 borrowing the term “social world” offered by David Unruh. It designates social ties uniting people with similar interests, which are developed through the course of long involvement in the activity and maintained by means of communication, not only personal, but also semi-formal and mediated communication. As might be inferred from the description, the notion of unique ethos is quite complex and somewhat controversial: it is simultaneously perceived as culture, specific social organization and social entity, but it is too extensive and wide, with no clear boundaries and a weak structure, held together by common interest in the activity and norms and beliefs which are being produced as a result of engagement in it. In this respect a “unique ethos” can be considered as a consequence of involvement in serious leisure and can be even viewed as one of the benefits of the activity, a particular case of social interaction and social belonging. In current research unique ethos as a characteristic of serious leisure is not of primary interest as it is supposed not to be of much importance for the biographical project.

The last significant characteristic of serious leisure is a strong identification of participants with the activity104. As serious leisure requires regular practice,

102 Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific Sociological Review, 257. 103 Stebbins, R. A. (1998). After work: The search for an optimal leisure lifestyle. (p. 22). Calgary: Detselig. 104 Ibid., p. 21.


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effort and commitment and being a long-term pastime and also quite complex and meaningful activity, it forms a substantial and prolonged basis for building one’s own identity, and even an enhanced and strengthened identity. This way achieved identification can be considered as a kind of a bigger scale benefit on its own, arising as a result of combined work of other features of serious leisure as well as its rewards, especially personal ones like self-fulfillment, self-enrichment, improved self-understanding and self-esteem. The ability of serious leisure to generate a strong identification of the person with the chosen hobby is particularly relevant for the current research as it might perform an important function in the construction of the vision of oneself in the biographical project.

2.2.5. Model of serious leisure

Having considered all characteristics of serious leisure and its benefits as conceptualized by Stebbins, we suggest transforming the initial theoretical framework and amending some notions for the purposes of the current research. We would like to use a what might be called dynamic model of serious leisure, with investments/ contributions, negative consequences/ outcomes (costs) and positive consequences (benefits/ rewards) as its main components. Investments incorporate tangible and intangible inputs, the first one including material and measurable things (time, money, special equipment, instruments, uniform etc), the second one – non-material and difficult to measure contributions (physical, emotional, intellectual), with the notion of significant effort going into the intangible inputs. Costs are divided into physical, psychological and social, while benefits encompass wide range of personal and limited number of social rewards. Other features of serious leisure – career, identification and unique ethos – also represent specific outcomes of the activity leisure and should be included in the list of benefits. Perseverance is substituted for a wider concept of commitment, comprised of behavioral, affective and normative component and connected simultaneously to investments, costs and benefits. Here is the final concluding scheme illustrating the points mentioned above.


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. Scheme 4. Complex model of serious leisure Source: scheme by I.A.

This model is highly relevant for the research of the role of serious leisure in the biographical project, as biographical project presupposes monitoring of behavior, reflexivity over one’s own actions and assessment of the inputs and outputs of the activities. The model preserves the main features of serious leisure but represents their reconfiguration in terms of investments in the activity and its positive outcomes (benefits) as well as negative consequences (costs), therefore is a suitable instrument for the analysis of empirical material.

2.3. Late Modernity and Individualization. Biographical Project and Serious Leisure

“As I move through time, things change. I change, the world changes, the way the world sees me changes. I age, I fail, I succeed, I am lost. I have a moment of calm. The remnants of who I have been, however, hover, embarrass me, depress me, make me wistful. The inkling of who I

will be depresses me, makes me hopeful, scares me, and embarrasses me. And here I stand at this crossroads, always embarrassed, wistful, depressed, angry, longing, looking back, looking

forward. I may make a decision and move from that crossroads, at which point I find myself instantly at another crossroads. Therefore there is only movement”.

Scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman105

105 Kaufman, C. (2011). Screenwriters on screenwriting. The BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters’ Lecture Series. (p. 3). Retrieved from http://guru.bafta.org/sites/learning/files/guru_sws_ck_transcript_final.pdf.

investments costs

Serious leisure

Tangible: time, finances, equipment

Intangible: physical, emotional, intellectual effort

benefits Social: unique ethos group formation group achievement

Personal: self-actualization self-development self-expression renewal of self self-image lasting products financial return career identification

BC: perseverence

AC: affection

NC: obligation

Commitment

Social

Physical

Psychological

Application of special skills,

knowledge and training

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The brilliant words of a famous scriptwriter used as an epigraph illustrate the conditions of late modernity and individualization which constitute the third theoretical pillar of my research. Permanent change, uncertainty, moving through one’s own life with confusion, cherishing hopes and being depressed by fears, constantly engaged in reflection over oneself trying to make sense of past experience and bring it together with prospects for the future – all these points are incorporated in the theory of individualization elaborated by Beck and Gernsheim and conceptions of late/ high/ second/ reflexive or liquid modernity by Beck, Giddens and Bauman. They serve as a necessary background for situating serious leisure in relation to the individual’s biography and characterize institutional settings and structural conditions young people find themselves in.

2.3.1. Individualization as a structural condition of late modernity

Individualization is a specific social condition and a process in late modernity, under which “individual is becoming the major unit of social reproduction”106. Beck defines it as a “structural characteristic of highly differentiated societies”107 and “social structure of second modern society itself”108. He attributes its emergence to the consequences of modernization and considers the changes in institutional framework as its main cause.

On the one hand, individualization arises out of “the disintegration of previously existing social forms”109 and decline of the traditional institutions like kinship, religion, family, local community and industrial institutions like national identity and class and norms associated with them. While involvement in these institutions, of course, remains, it becomes looser, its importance weakens and it exercises much less influence on individual life. Individuals become liberated from the previously all-embracing and prescribing force of traditions, and his/her life is not dominated by them any more. Bauman refers to this process as “melting of solids”, understanding it as a wide process of progressive liberation from bonds, constraints and responsibilities limiting individual choice, but connects it to the necessities of rationality dictated by the logic of business efficiency110. Beck writes about “the increasing fragility of such categories as class and social status, gender roles, neigbourhood etc”111 meaning that former collective identities cease to be a “stable frame of reference”. Beck also calls them “zombie categories” and “zombie institutions”112 implying that though they exist and continue to function, they are not fully alive and powerful any more. It gives rise to the state of disembeddedness when involvement of the individual

106 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 22). London: Sage. 107 Ibid., p. 21. 108 Ibid., p. 22. 109 Ibid., p. 2. 110 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. (pp. 4-5). Cambridge: Polity. 111 Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. Individualization…p. 2. 112 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity…p. 6.


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in traditional institutions is diminishing, changing and can no longer be the major predictor of personal life trajectory.

This point has been largely criticized by many scholars: their argument is that categories of class, race, gender are still powerful axis of existing stratification, influencing individual lives to a great extent by regulating resource allocation and determining life chances113. For instance, Atkinson demonstrated that “class continues to determine inequality at each stage of individuals’ biographies”114. Research on young people in Netherlands revealed that “normal biographies”, marked by early beginning of employment and marriage in younger age, are “largely experienced by young people from disadvantaged socio-economic background”, while youth belonging to higher classes are more likely to construct “choice biographies”, marked by longer education and based on life-planning115. Researchers from the United Kingdom argue that “while structures appear to have fragmented, […] life chances and experiences can still largely be predicted using knowledge of individuals’ locations within social structures: […] class and gender divisions remain central to an understanding of life experiences”116. We recognize the relevance of these claims and agree that existing structural inequality based on class, gender, ethnicity and other divisions is still powerful and impacts individual biographies. Forms of stratification serve as a certain framework for individual actions as they “situate individualization”, making it more acute or extenuating it, depending on the individual’s position in the social structure117. We can say that social stratification draws certain boundaries and imposes limits for individual life formation, creating a number of pathways or spaces for realizing individual life trajectory. At the same time processes of individualization have a transformative influence on social stratification, with the realization and expression of belonging to one or another social category becoming more individualized.

On the other hand, individualization is the result of the rise of modern institutions, primarily labor market, education system and welfare state. Their regulations are specifically “geared to the individual and not to a group”118: for example, employment is centered on the person (contract, salary), taxes are collected individually, social benefits are paid to the person, in education individual performance and progress is the key indicator of its success. This way, focusing on the individual as a single entity, institutions encourage people “to constitute themselves as individuals: to plan, understand, design

113 Atkinson (2012), Furlong (2007), Raymond. 114 Akinson, W. (2012). Class, individualization, and late modernity: In search of the reflexive worker. International Sociology, 27, 265. 115 Baker, J. (2005). The politics of choice: Difficult freedoms for young women in late modernity (Doctoral dissertation, James Cook University). (p. 29). Retrieved from http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/12/2/02whole.pdf. 116 Furlong, A., Cartmel, F. (2007). Young people and social change: New perspectives. (p. 2). Buckingham: Open University Press and McGraw-Hill. 117 Dawson, M. (2012). Reviewing the critique of individualization. The disembedded and embedded theses. Acta Sociologica, 55(4), 313. 118 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 21). London: Sage.

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themselves and act as individuals”119. Their individual-oriented functioning reinforces the differentiation of the single person who becomes “the basic figure of fully developed modernity”120. Simultaneously, it makes family and other collective ties much less stable and necessary because institutions tend to “dissolve the pre-requisites of lasting companionship”121. In contrast to traditional norms, which prescribe certain action or strictly prohibit some behavior, modern institutions tend to create a framework for action instead. Their guidelines are quite wide, complex and serve as set of regulations, constituting an incentive to act, but not dictating the action itself122. They do not provide one with ready answers what to do and whom to be, what rules to adhere to, what position to occupy, what groups to associate with. Therefore Beck describes individualization as a process of “disembedding without reembedding”. Bauman underlines the unsteadiness of this situation – “No 'beds' are furnished for 'reembedding', and such beds as might be postulated and pursued prove fragile and often vanish before the work of 're-embedding' is complete” – and declares that disembeddedness becomes a constant condition of individual life as “there is no prospect of re-embeddedment' at the end of the road”123.

Thus, the individual is “removed from traditional commitments and support relationships”124 and from old norms and certainties they provide, but it is not compensated by the respective involvement in new institutional settings. Departing from prescribing and prohibiting regulating techniques of traditional institutions, new institutional guidelines compel people to organize and “run their own life” by themselves: “Opportunities, dangers, biographical uncertainties that were earlier predefined within the family association, the village community, or by recourse to the rules of social estates or classes, must now be perceived, interpreted, decided and processed by individuals themselves”125. It changes individual lives which are now more open for the continuous construction and self-production126, and “normal biography thus becomes the `elective biography', the `reflexive biography', the `do-it-yourself biography'.”127

2.3.2 Consequences of individualization for biography construction

The first outcomes of the dominance of modern institutions is the dramatic increase of opportunities for choice among occupations, lifestyles, partners, and identities. People have much more possibilities to build their own life

119 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 3). London: Sage. 120 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. (p.122). London: Sage. 121 Ibid., p. 123. 122 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization…pp. 3-4. 123 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. (pp. 33-34). Cambridge: Polity. 124 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society…p. 131. 125 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization…p. 4. 126 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society…p. 135. 127 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization…p. 3.


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according to their own preferences and decisions, as all principal and small aspects of the existence concerning education, profession, marriage, children, faith are not pre-determined and have to be decided by the person. As Beck formulates it, in our time individual becomes “a choice among possibilities”128, and “the choosing, deciding, shaping human being who aspires to be the author of his or her own life, the creator of an individual identity, is the central character of our time”129. Another consequence is that the level of responsibility and demands placed upon single person have also increased. The pressure of making decisions and the weight of all their consequences are fully imposed upon the individual: “the burden of pattern-weaving and the responsibility for failure falling primarily on the individual's shoulders”.130 The constraining effect is intensified by the fact, that the situation of the choice itself is not freely chosen. Individualization as a social process and condition emerged as a result of changes in the institutional structure and was not “arrived at by a free decision of individuals”131. That is why Beck asserts that “people are condemned to individualization”132 and Bauman speaks about it as a “fate”133. The opportunity to form one’s own life, to choose and decide for oneself becomes a necessity, a freedom is turned into a compulsion as “the option to escape individualization and to refuse participation in the individualizing game is emphatically not on the agenda”134.

Another circumstance which adds to the complexity of the individual situation, when one is compelled to construct one’s own life and bear the full responsibility for the outcomes of the decision, is institutional dependency. Being the driving force of the individualizing processes and principal basis of the individualization, institutional structure serves as a framework for individual actions, choices and decisions. This structure becomes highly involved in the construction of individual biographies: though not conditioning them directly, it provides a system of reference enabling to divide life trajectories into stages, determining their turning and crucial points. For example, life of a young person is constructed around the process of studying and attending education institutions, starting from kindergarten and school and continuing in professional or higher education institutions. Although the length of school years, the curriculum, teaching techniques, the age of finishing secondary education may vary across different locations, administrative units, social classes and groups, the life of the person is still built around and comprehended in relation to the educational experience or to its absence. The same applies to other institutions, with labor market being the central one, which “stamp the biography of the individual”135 by the patterns and forms

128 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 5). London: Sage. 129 Ibid., pp. 22-23. 130 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. (p. 8). Cambridge: Polity. 131 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 4). London: Sage. 132 Ibid. 133 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity…p. 34. 134 Ibid. 135 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. (p.131). London: Sage.


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inherent to them. In this way, personal life trajectory becomes tied to the institutional settings and is structured by them, and “the apparent outside of the institutions becomes the inside of the individual biography”136.

Institutional dependency results in two major consequences, and the first one of them is standardization of individual biographies. Standardization arises out of the fact that individuals build their lives within the same institutionally generated patterns and the same institutional framework. This framework provides broad range of options and enables individuals to construct their biographical pathways with a wide scope for choice. Therefore standardization does not mean that individual lives resemble each other to a large extent, on the contrary, their complexity and variety is increasing. But the diversity and uniqueness of every personal life trajectory is constituted uniformly, in the universalized and institutionally determined way137. It contains the same referential points and is permeated by the same institutional structures as in other biographies. Therefore Beck argues that individual life cannot be considered as a “life peculiar to oneself”138, but I would say that it is perhaps peculiar and particular as never before, it is the process of the construction of the peculiarity which became standardized.

Standardization of biographies does not only take place within the borders of the nation-state, but largely between European countries and even throughout the world. Similarity between institutional arrangements and regulations is considered as a result of the expansion of nation-state as a form of political organization throughout the 20th century as well as the processes of globalization. On an organizational and institutional level it was expressed in the global diffusion of institutional patterns139 across countries caused by organizational isomorphism140 and the influence of international organizations, promoting institutional homogeneity141. For our research it implies that institutional frameworks shaping the construction of life trajectories of young people in Russia, Saint Petersburg, and Germany, Berlin, including the system of education, employment, leisure and entertainment institutions, have many common features. Therefore we will be able to identify similar structural influences and reference points in young people’s biographies in both countries and make them comparable. At the same time, similarities will assist us in finding out the meaningful differences in institutional settings and regulations and how they are reflected in individual lives.

136 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. (p. 130). London: Sage. 137 This is close to what Robertson called “the universalization of the particular” happening at the intersection of globalizing and localizing processes – in Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture (Vol. 16). (pp. 177-178). Sage. 138 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 23). London: Sage. 139 Stichweh, R. (2000). On the genesis of world society: Innovations and mechanisms. Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 1(1), 32. 140 Meyer, J. W., Drori, G. S., & Hwang, H. (2006). World society and the proliferation of formal organization. Globalization and organization, 25-49. 141 Finnemore, M. (1993). International organizations as teachers of norms: the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cutural Organization and science policy. International Organization, 47(4), 565-597.


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The second consequence of the institutional dependency is the lack of control over one’s own life and the consequences of one’s choices. Placed under new demands to make decisions, to take individual responsibility for themselves and “control of one's own money, time, living space and body”142, individuals find themselves in a controversial and disadvantageous situation. Bauman notices “the yawning gap between the right of selfassertion and the capacity to control the social settings”143, when striving to optimize their choice and ensure successful outcomes of their decisions, individuals are deprived of control over institutional structures shaping their biographies. Institutions produce contradictions or fail to fill in gaps in their regulations; they might be inconsistent and clash with each other and generate risks. But the task of overcoming the negative consequences of social problems and finding a way to deal with the structural imbalances and contradictions is imposed on the individual: “Risks and contradictions go on being socially produced; it is just the duty and the necessity to cope with them which are being individualized”144. The failure to arrange one’s life properly or find a way out of a difficult situation is viewed as a personal failure: for example, an unemployed person will be blamed for being not competent enough or not making sufficient effort to find a new job, while the decrease in the number of vacancies might be a result of crisis in the industry. The process of “subjectivization and individualization of risks”145 takes place, and individuals are forced “to seek biographical solutions to systemic contradictions”146.

As a result, people experience multiple pressures: institutional structure opens up a variety of options and opportunities before them, but they are loaded with unavoidable difficulties. First, the situation of choice itself is not voluntary and individuals face the “compulsive and obligatory self-determination”147. Second, available opportunities are characterized by diversity and complexity, which one is barely able to evaluate. But, in contrast to traditional norms and collective commitments, new institutions do not provide any support or guidelines helping the individual to orient herself in the world of options: “Modernity confronts individual with a complex diversity of choices and […] at the same time offers little help as to which options should be selected”148. Thus individuals encounter uncertainty and need to create their own frames of reference to make sense of the social reality around them. Third, the responsibility for failure and negative consequences of choice are also increasingly placed on the individual’s shoulders, but the opportunities to control the institutional patterns and regulations which their personal biography is dependent on are minimal. There is an acute discrepancy between the burden of responsibility over one’s own life and subjection to the structural influences it is tied to, leading to the sense

142 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 32). London: Sage. 143 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. (p. 38). Cambridge: Polity. 144 Ibid., p. 34. 145 Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. (p. 136). London: Sage. 146 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 22). London: Sage. 147 Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity...p. 32. 148 Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. (p. 80). Stanford University Press.


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of lack of control and powerlessness in the face of life circumstances. This imbalance is also intensified by unpredictability, instability and risks generated by institutional functioning.

2.3.3. Biographical project: main features

A biographical project emerges as a response and individual strategy to deal with the pressures of individualization as a structural condition of late modernity. It serves as a means to make sense of the complexity and diversity of choices, to reduce the uncertainty in decision-making and cope with the unpredictability and instability of the surrounding life situations as well as gain a sense of power over one’s own life.

The notion of the project is grounded in the existentialism philosophy of Sartre and his idea that “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. […] that man primarily exists – that man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so. Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life”149. Here we notice two important characteristics of biographical project: it included projection into the future, orientation towards the unknown, and subjective consciousness of this projection, its reflexive awareness. Projection into the future means that the individual’s focus of attention is directed towards the future: the person creates a vision of future events, anticipates certain courses of action, forms expectations concerning conditions awaiting him/her there and places himself/ herself in this context to predict the outcome of his/her decision. Projection also means that the vision of the future situation has significant implications on the immediate behavior of the person. Anticipation of the future, aimed at facilitating the present choices and optimizing their consequences, begins to influence and transform the individual’s current actions and decisions.

The second distinctive feature of the biographical project is reflexivity, which is connected to its orientation towards the future and presupposes a narrative construction of the self, making sense of one’s actions and life events. Reflexivity emerges as a necessity, as a consequence and simultaneously a means to make sense of the complexity and variety of the options which are placed before the individual in the conditions of individualization150. As people are no more “born into their identities”, and one’s life trajectory and identity are not given, but transformed into a task151, individual reflective practices, including self-monitoring and self-observation, and interpreting activities play a decisive role in their constitution. Identity cannot be understood as a combination of certain features, but is constituted as “a continuity as interpreted

149 Op. cit. Kaufmann, W. A. (1989). Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. Meridian Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm. 150 This logic is similar to the explanation by Simmel that the specificity of spiritual life in big cities is caused by the complex life organization requiring more “amount of consciousness” – taken from Рукша Г. Л., Нужная А.Л. Интеллектуальный досуг жителей мегаполисов: теория и современная практика. – Красноярск, 2008. – 2 c. 151 Beck U., Beck-Gernsheim E. (2001). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. (p. 15). London: Sage.

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reflexively by the agent” and is connected to the individual’s vision of the self “in terms of his or her biography”152. It emerges as a result of “the reflexive activities” of the person and needs to be “routinely created and sustained”, therefore identity is not defined by behavior or interactions with other people, but is rooted “in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going”153.

The narrative reflexive construction of oneself and one’s own life is not stable and fixed, but is subject to repetitive reproduction, reconsideration and change. Giddens refers to this feature as a necessity to maintain “coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives”154. A biographical project is not only constantly changing and never able to achieve its final form, but has to acquire some integrity and cohesion as well. Individuals need to find a way to combine diverse fragments of self-images and ambiguous understanding of different life situations into a coherent and consistent vision of oneself and one’s biography. It is fulfilled by composing a story of one’s own life, when a person reflects upon himself/ herself and his/her life events, tries to comprehend the past experience, seeks a meaning in the current situation and formulates plans for the future. Thus reflexivity presupposes dealing with time, structuring and organizing time, when interpretation of pastevents becomes vital for the prediction of the future: “reconstruction of the past goes along with anticipation of the likely life trajectory of the future”155.

It is noteworthy that individual life trajectory and the self become inextricably linked to one another, as stories about meaningful life events are incorporated into the image of the self, becoming its building material, but the self in turn impacts on the way different life situations and occurrences are perceived. Another important element for “the reflexive project of the self” is the activities a person is involved in, especially if they “hold particular value or meaning”156. The biographical project answers the most vital questions of late modernity – What to do? Who to be?157, and they prove to be highly interconnected, so that the solution to one contains the solution to the other as well. In this way, self-identity is developed through the reflection over one’s actions and behavior, and the awareness of who I am further in turn shapes the choice and understanding of one’s activities. Therefore the biographical project is not exactly the reflexive project of the self, but a wider narrative construction, with “key activities and events feeding strongly into one’s sense of self”. Thus it is formed as an integrated vision of the self in connection to awareness of one’s actions and one’s life trajectory.

Reflexivity is accompanied and supplemented by the planning activity which is also of key importance for envisioning the future and for “preparing a course of future actions”158. Giddens calls it “life planning” and indicates “consideration of

152 Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. (p. 87). Stanford University Press. 153 Ibid., p. 87. 154 Ibid., p. 5. 155 Ibid., p. 70. 156 Tomlinson, M. (2013) Education, work and identity. Themes and perspectives. (p. 24). London: Bloomsbury. 157 Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity…p. 70. 158 Ibid., p. 85.


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risks as filtered through contact with expert knowledge” as one of its main features159. He argues that “risk assessment is crucial to the colonization of the future. […] it necessarily opens the self out to the unknown”160. So biographical project as a reflexive vision of the self and one’s own life projected into the future implies risk assessment, which should be understood more widely as various calculation and evaluation activities undertaken by the person. They include consideration of available opportunities, options and obstacles which might hinder to use them or extract promised benefits, of advantages and disadvantages of one’s own position, calculation of possible gains and losses, taking into account the resources at the individual’s disposal and external conditions for action and so on.

Planning as a reflection and consideration of different circumstances, which might affect the individual’s actions and their outcomes, is marked by the logic of rationality. As rationality itself has been more and more loaded with economic and management efficiency discourse throughout the 20th century, the biographical project, constructed by the means of calculating and evaluating activities, becomes penetrated by the management and business-related categories161. Already the notion of biographical project itself reminds us of the commercial project and business plan. As business plans have widely expanded as a way of organizing business activity since 1940s as well as accounting being a particular calculative practice within the planning, this business-planning-calculative logic has become so largely accepted beyond the area of professional entrepreneurship162. In regards to life, it might imply that individuals, for example, searching for the optimal decision, assess the resources at their disposal, consider alternative options in terms of possible profits and losses, try to calculate the probability of positive outcomes, reduce possible costs and finally determine whether to make an “investment”. When planning integrates the logic of running a business company, and adopts the categories and criteria of economic efficiency in relation to life choices, the vision of one’s life and image of oneself in biographical project is transformed. Personal life, having to be constructed and planned by the individual in the circumstances of uncertainty and unpredictability, is increasingly viewed as one’s own “business project”163 or enterprise, with the individual becoming his/her own entrepreneur with “enterprising self”164 for an identity. Biographical project is not only filled with categories from economics and business sphere, but is influenced by the values and ideas they contain. For instance, financially defined success may become the keystone of the vision of one’s life or

159 Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. (p. 87). Stanford University Press. 160 Ibid., p. 89. 161 de Lange, F. (2007). Becoming one self: A critical retrieval of 'choice biography'. Journal of reformed theology, 1(3), 272. 162 On the influence of accounting on organization and trend towards economization of wider social processes please see: Miller, P., & Power, M. (2013). Accounting, organizing, and economizing: Connecting accounting research and organization theory. The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 555-603. 163 Detailed analysis of how different strategies of business planning presuppose different construction of the self of business men can be found at: Giraudeau, M. (2012). Remembering the future: Entrepreneurship guidebooks in the US, from meditation to method (1945-1975). Foucault Studies, (13), 40-66. Retrieved from http://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/view/3506/3810. 164 de Lange, F. (2007). Becoming one self…p. 274.

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quantitatively constructed notion of achievement may occupy an important place in one’s image of the self. This way, economic and business efficiency ideas and categories find their way into individual biographies and may have an impact on the biographical project, both the process of its construction and inner content.

2.3.4. Biographical project: definition, model and ties to serious leisure

Having considered the important aspects of biographical project, we can distinguish its three main features: projection or orientation into the future, reflexivity (reflective and interpreting activities) and planning (calculation and evaluation activities). Biographical project should not be confused with biography, on the one hand, or reduced to self-identity, on the other. It consists of several components and is formed around the life trajectory and events constituting it, activities the person is engaged in and the image of the self, interconnected and constructing each other. Summarizing, we can define biographical project as a narrative construction, a coherent, but continuously revised vision of the self, one’s activities and one’s own life trajectory, characterized by orientation towards the future, reflexivity and planning. The scheme below provides an illustration of our understanding of the concept of biographical project.

Scheme 5. Biographical project: its features and components. Source: scheme by I.A.


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Leisure as a sphere of human activity acquires special importance in the conditions of late modernity and individualization. Scholars speak about leisure as “a distinctive space, in which people can cultivate their preferred self-identities”165. Leisure activities, being not directly constrained by the existence and subsistence purposes and characterized by the sense of perceived freedom, may serve as an open area for testing one’s abilities, trying new behavior, experimenting with identities and finding an optimal lifestyle. Risks associated with leisure sphere do not typically have a huge impact on the life of the individual, and the consequences of the wrong decision are not so dramatic, as they can be, for example, with when the wrong choice is made in the sphere of education or in marriage. Therefore people can enjoy a relief from responsibility, so pressing in other life situations, and feel not so afraid of making mistakes and more confident in undertaking different actions. Leisure is also considered as an area with more opportunities for self-reflection and development of self-awareness. In leisure as a state of non-business we can distance ourselves from mundane concerns and “take an ‘outside’ view of ourselves and the roles that are mapped for us”166.

Serious leisure, due to its distinctive features, has a potential to play a significant role in coping with the consequences of individualization and in creating the biographical project. Involvement in serious leisure may help to reduce the pressures of individualization described above. Unique ethos, consisting of common values, views and beliefs and emerging during the course of a serious leisure pursuit, may provide individuals with the required frames of reference and assist in coping with uncertainty in decision-making. Serious leisure also has a potential capacity to decrease the acuteness of the problems of unpredictability and sense of the lack of control over one’s own life. It normally presupposes significant effort and commitment on the part of the participant leading to the development of a “career” in the chosen pastime. As the result is achieved primarily through personal effort and labor, the connection between the input and outcome becomes more visible and the result of the contribution is experienced as more predictable. Therefore individuals may feel more powerful when pursuing their leisure activities. In addition, individuals can regulate the frequency and intensity of their participation in serious leisure with greater freedom and autonomy, giving the sense of managing their own effort and time. In some cases individuals can also influence the institutional and organizational aspects of serious leisure, exercising more control over how, where and in what forms leisure takes place.

Regarding the biographical project, serious leisure may contribute to its formation in several ways. As an meaningful activity consuming a lot of individual time and energy and being an area for development of one’s abilities and skills, serious leisure often becomes a significant part of life and one of the major components of self-identity. So it embraces and considerably influences two components of the biographical project – activities and image of the self. Another point is that regularity, systematic and long-term involvement in serious 165 Best, S. (2010). Leisure studies: Themes and perspectives. (p. 46). London: Sage. 166 Roberts, K. (2006). Leisure in contemporary society. (p. 217). Cabi.


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leisure constitutes a continuous life experience throughout the life trajectory which may become a point of stability in contrast to the complex and multi-directional changes one faces in other spheres of life. Due to its consistency serious leisure may operate as a sort of anchor in the biographical project and because of its continuity serve as a thread binding fragments of one’s life into an integral and coherent whole. Serious leisure also brings a number of meaningful benefits, but requires significant effort and is often associated with considerable costs. It stimulates the person to engage in calculating and evaluating practices to maintain the optimal level of participation, maximizing the positive outcomes while keeping investments and costs at a tolerable level. So serious leisure is accompanied by planning activities in the same manner as they are involved in the creation of the biographical project: it may serve as a training ground, where planning can be practiced with more freedom and confidence as well as make its own contribution to larger life-planning process.

Our task in the research will be to identify how components of biographical project are constructed through and in serious leisure: how the image of the self, the vision of one’s activities and one’s life is created, maintained and transformed by participation in serious leisure and finally, how different parts are composed into one continuity and whether serious leisure enhances the integration and coherence of the biographical project. We will also observe empirical data, showing how features of biographical project are expressed and combined in individual stories, what role they play in understanding the involvement in serious leisure, relating it other spheres of life and incorporating it into the larger biographical narrative.

3. Empirical Investigation of Serious Leisure

This chapter is devoted to the discussion of empirical material, collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews with young people participating in serious leisure and living in Saint Petersburg and Berlin. First, I will introduce the research design, describe research method and sampling strategy as well as characterize the respondents who took part in the research and the interviews I conducted with them. Second, I will analyze the data with regards to serious leisure and its main features according to the model presented above. Third, I will do an analysis of data relating to individualization and how it is experienced by young people, Finally, I will consider how biographical project is formed in terms of its main features and components as elaborated in the previous chapter. As a result, I will develop a comprehensive picture of how serious leisure contributes to the biographical project and its formation, and offer a typology of positions and roles of serious leisure in the biographical project.


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3.1. Research Design, Method and Sampling. Characteristics of Respondents and Collected Data

The study is focused on exploring how serious leisure of young people living in big European cities relates to and is involved in their whole life courses. The research starts from the assumption that, due to its special features, serious leisure plays an essential role in the life of young people in the era of late modernity and under structural conditions of individualization. Elaborating the notion of biographical project, we seek to find how serious leisure is incorporated in their vision of the self, their biography and things they do and how it affects their future plans and prospects. Therefore the main research question is: how does serious leisure contribute to the biographical project of young people? Thus, the aim of the research is to identify the contribution of serious leisure to the biographical project. The aim includes the following objectives:

To determine the features and patterns of involvement in serious leisure

To find out the meaning and significance of serious leisure for young people, their attitudes to serious leisure

To identify the position of serious leisure in the biographical project

To reveal the functions of serious leisure in the biographical project

To identify similarities and differences in serious leisure contributions to the biographical project among young people in Berlin and St Petersburg

To trace the impact of social and institutional context on the engagement in serious leisure and its contribution to the biographical project.

The object of the research is the biographical project as a narrative construction and young people’s reflexive vision of the self, their activities and life trajectory. The subject of the investigation is the contribution of serious leisure to the biographical project, which consists of two components – position (what contribution is made?) and functions (how is the contribution made?) expressed in patterns of involvement (behavioral indicator) and attitudes to serious leisure, its meaning and significance (subjective indicator).

In-depth semi-structured interview was chosen as the most appropriate method for the research. It gave the opportunity to bring some structure into the talk and concentrate on the main aspects of participation in serious leisure, its meaning for the person and its place in the individual biography. At the same time it allowed the researcher to keep the talk sufficiently open to the engage in deeper exploration of some issues relevant to the matter and also flexible enough to let the respondent construct his/her narrative with minimum impact from the researcher and the guide167. The method proved to be appropriate and made it possible to collect rich and detailed material, adequate for achieving the objectives and answering the research question.

167 See the interview guide in the Appendix 1.


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The strategy of purposive sampling was used for the selection of the informants. The selection criteria were: engagement in amateur art as serious leisure operationalized as regular systematic involvement in any art activity, requiring complex skills and pursued outside of work and/ or main studies; then also age (from 18 to 35 years old), place of residence (Saint Petersburg or Berlin, permanent or temporary) and gender (both genders should be sufficiently presented); no selection criteria for education and occupation was used. The respondents were found through friends and acquaintances as well as through application to different musical organizations, choirs and through www.couchsurfing.org website.

As a result, 27 interviews were collected: 13 interviews with young people living in Berlin and 14 interviews with young people from Saint Petersburg. They were conducted personally, mostly in cafés and in some cases at respondents’ homes (2 respondents) and one in the university yard. There were two interviews not in a standard format: one girl brought her boyfriend (Masha168, Spb, 30169) and he was present at the conversation, though seldom interfered in the talk; another case was a group discussion with the members of self-organized choir in the place they live (2 young men and a young woman), resulting in a meaningful and rich in content talk and a deeper biographical interview with the leader of the choir (Peter, B, 27). Materials from the interview with him are used as major source of information, while some comments and essential details on the choir's functioning shared by choir members are also referred to when necessary. The length of the interview varies from 54 min to 4,5 hours, with average interview lasting 2 hours: in Saint Petersburg interviews in general lasted a little longer (2h 9min in comparison to 1h 54min in Berlin) and their length also varied (from 54 min (the shortest) to 4h 31 min (the longest) in comparison to Berlin with 54 min and 2h 54 min).

First of all, it is necessary to characterize the respondents in terms of age, education, employment, occupation and marital status. We will use simple calculations and graph illustrations to describe the informants and reveal what socio-economic group they represent, but do not intend to undertake any quantitative analysis in the classical sense as the sample is very limited.

The average age of the respondents is 26,5 year old, with respondents in Saint-Petersburg being a little younger (25,8 y.o.) than in Berlin (27,2 y.o.). Variation of age is also greater in Saint Petersburg: 16 years (from 18 to 34 y.o.) in comparison to 9 in Berlin (from 23 to 32 y.o.). There are 12 male and 15 female informants (Saint Petersburg: 9F+5M; Berlin: 6F+7M), and average age is approximately the same for both genders (26,9 y.o. for men and 26,1 y.o. for women). But male respondents in Berlin are somewhat older (28,3 y.o.) than females in both cities (26 y.o. (Berlin), 26,2 y.o. (Saint-Petersburg)), while male respondents in Saint Petersburg are the youngest (25 y.o.).

168 Here and further on we use fictional names for anonymity purposes. 169 Here and further on we use number in brackets to indicate the age of the respondent and the shortened name of the cities to indicate their place of living: Berlin – B, Saint-Petersburg – Spb.

http://www.couchsurfing.org/


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Educational level of the respondents is quite high: almost all of them have higher education (20 or 74%) or are in the process of studying towards a degree (14 or 52%), including those who already have a degree, but are continuing education on a higher level (8 or 30%). Only one girl (Berlin, 24 y.o.) has an incomplete higher education after two attempts to get a degree and does not intend to resume studying.

Diagram 1. Level of education of respondents in both cities Source: diagram by I.A.

In Saint Petersburg respondents with higher education have mostly a specialist diploma, in Berlin the majority has a Bachelor degree. Among people who study at university, in Saint Petersburg there are persons on a Bachelor and specialist programme or studying towards a PhD degree; in Berlin the majority are students on a Master’s degree.

Saint-Petersburg

Bachelor degree Specialist PhD Total

HE* 0 9 + 1 Master’s 0 10

Studying in HEI** 2 2 3 7

Total 2 12 3

Berlin

Bachelor degree Master’s degree PhD Total

HE 7 2 1 10

10 10

20

7 7

14

35

8

0

5

10

15

20

25

Spb Berlin Total

nu

mb

er

of

resp

on

den

ts HE

Studying in HEI

HE + Studying in HEI


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6

0

3

1

3

00

1

00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HE Studying in HEI HE + Studying in HEI

nu

mb

er

of

resp

on

den

ts

Full-time work

Part-time work

Not working

Studying in HEI 1 5 1 7

Total 8 7 2

Table 1. Education of respondents Source: diagram by I.A.

The majority of the respondents also work separately or along with studies: 24 out of 27; in Berlin 2 persons do not work, in Saint-Petersburg – only 1. Only in Saint-Petersburg respondents are mostly employed full time (9 out of 14), including several persons who combine work with doing a PhD degree. Part-time employment is preferred by those, who are studying for their first degree.

Diagram 2. Respondents in Saint-Petersburg: combining work and studies Source: diagram by I.A.

In Berlin respondents are engaged almost equally in both part-time (6) and full-time (5), with part-time employment mostly done by students who are getting their first degree or continuing their education, while people with diplomas prefer full-time jobs.


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0 0

4

11

2

0

3

0 0

1 1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Incomplete HE Studying in HEI HE HE + Studying in

HEI

nu

mb

er

of

resp

on

den

ts

Full-time work

Part-time work

Not working

Diagram 3. Respondents in Berlin: combining work and studies Source: diagram by I.A.

Respondents perform a variety of jobs, but it is noteworthy that the most frequent occupations are in the IT-sphere (6 persons) and science and research (7), meaning that almost half of the respondents are involved in intellectually intensive work. Some informants perform administrative in commercial companies and public institutions (6). Thus the majority of young people are engaged in immaterial labor. It’s also interesting that the structure of occupations in both cities looks rather similar: work in IT, science and on administrative positions is prevalent, only in Berlin it is also done by students part-time, while in Saint-Petersburg these are mostly full-time jobs.

Full-time Part-time

IT (1C programming, python, other) 3

Science/ research

(biology, physiology, applied mathematics) 3

Administrative work

(manager, sales manager, content manager) 3

Lawyer 1

Wood carver 1

Worker in McDonalds 1

Assistant on children's excursions 1

Table 2. Work occupations of respondents in Saint Petersburg Source: table by I.A.


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Berlin Full-time Part-time

IT

(software development, software testing, web graphics) 2 1

Science/ research

(psychology, biology, biotechnology) 2 2

Administrative work (office work, foreign language assistant, assistant in the library)

1 2

Social work 0 1

Music (teaching + playing) 0 1

Table 3. Work occupations of respondents in Berlin Source: table by I.A.

Regarding marital status, the majority of the respondents are not married: 24 out of 27, with all 3 respondents in marriage being from Russia (2 females (27 and 28 y.o.) and one male (26 y.o.)). At the same time many respondents from Berlin reported having a long-term relationship. Informants also do not have children as a rule, with the only exception of a young man (26 y.o.) in Saint Petersburg, who has a two-year old daughter.

The major difference between young people in the two cities is observed in relation to their place of origin. While in Saint Petersburg the majority of the respondents was born and brought up in the city (9) and only some have come from other locations (5 – from Pskov, Cherepovets, Severodvinsk, Izhevsk, Belarus), in Berlin the majority of informants (11) have migrated from other German cities (6 – from Dresden, Munich and other) and even other countries (5: 2 – Italy, also Israel, Belgium, China).

It is difficult to generalize on the question about the social status of the respondents because of several reasons. There might be different criteria for judging about their position in the social structure: their own occupation, income and possessions and/ or the social standing, income and occupation of their parents as they also depend on their parents in some cases during studies or even during work. As the interview was directed towards serious leisure as activity and its incorporation in individual life trajectory, it was rarely possible to collect detailed information on all of these points, though I tried to do it when appropriate. Additionally, as information of this kind might be sensitive, sometimes respondents preferred not to disclose the details or avoided answering the questions. Thus, there is some data to analyze the social position of the respondents, but it is not comprehensive and complete.

In general, taking into account different factors, respondents in both Saint-Petersburg and Berlin can be referred to middle or upper middle class for the most part. There are only a few exceptions: one-two persons can be probably


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considered as representatives of upper class (financially independent or close to such state) and four-five – of lower middle class (lower income).

First of all, respondents have different social background: some of them come from villages or provincial towns, some were born and grew up in big cosmopolitan cities; some were brought up in an atmosphere of scarcity with little opportunities for good education and personal development, including leisure; some were born into wealthy families with access to ample resources and different possibilities for cultivating personal skills and abilities. Most respondents have well-educated parents, but there is variety in the earnings and social position among them , ranging from modestly earning average teachers and engineers to high-profile professionals with reputation and big income in the sphere of medicine, science, civil service, politics and music.

As for the informants themselves, there is also a big discrepancy between them in terms of income and social standing. It can be illustrated by two examples located at the poles of the scale: on the one side, a young girl who works part-time as a social worker, but earns barely enough and regularly experiences lack of money even for food at the end of the month, not to mention huge time spent on travelling with a bicycle as she cannot afford to rent accommodation nearer to the city; on the other side, a young man, who studies at the university and also works part-time in web design, but due to a legacy from his father has sufficient income not to work at all and is thinking, to what field he would like to devote his efforts. Between the poles there also other categories: among working professionals there are some young people performing more monotonous and not so rewarding tasks and earning just sufficiently to cover their everyday life expenses, while other persons may have a highly paid and interesting job they enjoy (usually the case with IT), which enables them to afford additional instruments, equipment or training for their pastime; scientists and PhD students are normally located somewhere in-between as they experience their job as highly rewarding, but do not receive a high salary. Students are also not a homogenous category, some earn for the existence almost entirely by themselves, but typically their position is determined by parents, their income, occupation and status: some young people are living with minimum support from parents and engage in trivial student-jobs to find some funds for their own expenses, some are very well provided for to be able not to work at all and still maintain quite a high standard of living. Thus, in general there is quite a high heterogeneity in terms of social background, social position and level of income among young people pursuing serious leisure, but they share the common feature of quite a high level of education, we suppose that for the most part they could be considered as representatives of middle and upper middle classes.

Summarizing, we can say that respondents are on average 25-28 years old and both genders are represented. They are characterized by high level of education: the majority already have a degree and half of them are attending higher education institutions. The respondents are also for the most part employed: in Saint-Petersburg predominantly work full-time, in Berlin – both full-time and part-time; in both cities predominantly in the sphere of IT, science


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3

4

4

2

1

1

1

5

3

5

2

1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Singing

Playing the instrument

Music: mixed

Dancing

Drawing

Theatre

Cinema

Photography

Modelling with clay

number of respondents

Berlin

Saint-Petersburg

and administrative work. Informants are generally not married and do not have children. The marked difference is that respondents from Saint Petersburg were born and grew up in the city, while respondents in Berlin they are mainly migrants who have come to the city from other places in Germany and other countries. There is also a big difference in the position in the social structure among respondents, in terms of income, social background, access to resources, but the majority can be referred to the middle and upper middle class.

3.2. Serious Leisure: Activities and Their Characteristics

As we explained above, the research is intentionally focused on amateur art, and we selected respondents who are involved in various art pastimes as serious leisure, while not controlling the specific type of the activity.

First, we need to characterize serious leisure activities of the respondents. We differentiated several categories (type of occupation, its connection to other hobbies, group or individual pastimes, organized and self-organized) and present some figures and graphs to describe these activities. The majority of our informants are involved in different music production activities (20 out of 27), including singing (8), playing the musical instrument (6) and combining different musical activities around one major serious leisure pursuit (6). Several respondents are engaged in dancing activity of different styles (4 – Saint-Petersburg, 2 – Berlin), including ballroom, Latino, Irish, tribal fusion and contemporary dance. The least common occupations are drawing, theatre, cinema, photography and modeling with clay170.

Diagram 4. Serious leisure activities of respondents in Saint-Petersburg and Berlin Source: diagram by I.A.

170 Please see the full list of respondents with individual information about their serious leisure and other hobby activities in Appendix.


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13

3

0

7 7

2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Group Individual Both

nu

mb

er

of

ac

tiv

itie

s

Berlin

Saint-Petersburg

As for the music production hobbies, singing takes places predominantly within some groups (university choirs (big choir, chamber choir), boys choir, independent choirs, jazzchoir, folklore ensemble, self-organized groups171) and only two persons, Masha (Spb, 30) and Lesha (Spb, 18), are doing solo singing: she is deeply interested in bel canto technique and he is keen on individual singing of popular songs by himself and recording them at home. Playing musical instruments includes playing the violin, viola, cello, guitar, oboe, and doing it as studies in musical school or college (common for Saint Petersburg) or participating in an orchestra (common for Berlin). Some young people are also involved in various aspects of music production simultaneously and it is mostly connected with self-organized music activities, both in groups of people and individually. For example, Mario (B, 32) writes his own songs, including music and text, and sings them with the guitar, which he also plays by himself; in addition he updates his webpage and acts as his own manager, getting in touch with various clubs to arrange performances and organizing the concert trips. Another case is with Peter (B, 27), who is a leader in a self-organized choir: he does not only love singing himself, but also does composing for the choir as well as fulfilling many leadership functions, bringing people together, motivating, planning activities, and is engaged in managerial work getting in contact with other bands and musicians to carry out common projects, arranging performances and caring for the records.

The majority of the respondents are participants in serious leisure activities which are conducted predominantly in group form: 20 out of 32 activities take place within different collectives (choirs, orchestras, dancing groups). In Berlin the majority of respondents (10 out of 13) are engaged in group pastimes, with three young women combining two collective hobbies (orchestra-choir/ choir-dancing/ orchestra-dancing), while only 3 have a hobby which they pursue mainly as an individual activity.

Diagram 5. Character of serious leisure activities: collective or individual Source: diagram by I.A.

171 We don’t mention the names of the institutions and organizations, where young people pursue their activities, for anonymity purposes: some of them are quite small and have unique or specific character so that members might be personally identified.


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In Saint-Petersburg informants are equally involved in collective and individual pastimes, with two of them combining two hobbies of different character (Nadya, 24: modeling with clay and dancing; Anya, 19: playing the guitar and singing), and the other two pursuing their serious leisure both in group and by themselves (Lesha, 18: singing in the choir and singing solo; Larisa: playing the violin in jams and bands, while training her technique individually).

In most cases respondents do not concentrate on only one serious leisure activity even if it consumes much of their time and energy. First of all, serious leisure might be combined with another serious leisure activity of the same or lower importance, in the sphere of art or another area. For instance, Astrid (B, 26) is devoted to playing the oboe in an orchestra, but also regularly sings in the big university choir: while she considers oboe as the main instrument and major interest in music, singing is viewed as pleasant but of secondary importance. Serious leisure can be also accompanied by various more casual pastimes, for example, in case of Andrey (Spb, 24), who is attending musical school, learning to play the violin and investing much time in training, but also has a lot of other interests (singing, writing lyrics), which acquire more casual form, and in addition is more regularly and seriously engaged in martial arts.

In most cases different activities young people are engaged in, including serious leisure and more casual pastimes, do not form large united clusters: they may be totally separate (Misha (Spb, 23): drawing and baseball) and hardly influence one another; they might be connected in some way, but are still pursued for different purposes (Dima (Spb, 34): acting and martial arts (contributing to the development of body)); or they might impact each other to a big extent, but still be preserved as two separate lines of activity (Lesha (Spb, 18): singing in the choir and singing solo).

But in some cases activities in the free time form a sort of constellations with closer ties between the elements. In case of Yulia (Spb, 32) free time activities are determined by and connected to serious leisure. When Yulia does additional physical training, attends yoga classes and creates a costume for the performance, it becomes an extension and contribution to her main serious leisure activity. She says that “dancing has really tied many things together” and in particular that “my interest in traditional music, oriental music and oriental culture in general, history, it has found embodiment”. Thus her activities form a sort of star-constellation, with tribal fusion located at the centre and linking other interests and pastimes to itself, giving them new meaning. Another interesting example of combining different leisure activities represents the story of Lena (Spb, 25): though her main interest was concentrated on contemporary dance, she has pursued a variety of different hobbies before and during serious leisure, including singing, playing guitar, drawing, Irish dancing and others. At first sight they seem separate and not to have much in common, but in every one of them she demonstrated the underlying motive: to explore complexity (“for me principally interesting it that, what is difficult. Irish dance – it’s difficult, and dancing on linen – it’s also difficult”) and cope with it (“if the task is difficult, it’s also interesting, because if you solve it, then well done (молодец - Rus)!”). On the other side, all her activities were intrinsically motivated by the wish to


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learn and discover new things, to make her brain work: she started singing to “learn something new” and has attended music school “to understand, what is music and what it consists of”; she considers dance as “an investigation in many respects and it even begin as in a laboratory” and “a bottomless well, from which one can draw, and draw, and draw […] and the more you dive, the more questions arise”. Thus all activities become united by the central impulse to inquire, to immerse oneself into the difficulties, to conquer them and to understand; serious leisure is then just one of the major areas for realization of this impulse. One more illustration of a coherent constellation of activities is the case of Frank (B, 30): he is passionate about photography, and it emerged out of riding around the city on a bicycle; still many pictures are made during his rides with a bike. He also developed a big interest in travelling, and now every journey is accompanied by photo sessions. Thus photography is very dependent on two other activities, but their meaning is also changing as well.

Serious leisure should not also be viewed as a homogeneous activity itself: it is quite rich in content and full with various activities. Great variety can be found in self-organized pastimes, and we have already described several cases of multi-componential music production activities (Mario (B, 32), Peter (B, 27)), where tasks of different types should be performed – from more creative singing, playing the instrument, composing to communication, managing and organizing work. But if we consider seemingly single-component music-production pastime, we’ll see that it is composed of different parts as well. For example, for Hans playing cello (B, 25) includes orchestra rehearsals, private classes with a cellist and independent training on weekends. In the orchestra he also fulfils the role of the principle in the cello group, which means communication, rehearsal with the group and responsibility for its performance, as well as getting instructions from the conductor. In addition, the orchestra gives concerts twice a year so performing before an audience constitutes another part of serious leisure activity. Then there are regular informal meetings of orchestra members for socializing and talking to each other. Thus serious leisure incorporates a variety of different roles, activities, tasks, impressions which are built up into the general experience associated with playing the instrument. If we take the case of musical school in Saint Petersburg for comparison, we’ll see that such activity as playing the instrument is heterogeneous as well, but in another way. It takes place within specialty classes twice a week as well as during self training sessions at home, accompanied by orchestra as an additional class along with solfeggio, musical literature and the choir. It might also include some performances and informal meetings with other students and the teacher, but these subactivities will be constituted differently. This example shows that composition of activities within serious leisure and its overall experience are impacted and shaped by the institutional settings where it takes place. We can observe the same with dancing and other types of serious leisure: they are multi-componental inside and include various tasks, roles, stages, and this complexity is rooted in or mediated by institutional structure and rules, where young people are involved.

http://www.lingvo-online.ru/ru/Search/Translate/GlossaryItemExtraInfo?text=сольфеджио&translation=solfeggio&srcLang=ru&destLang=en


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It is therefore noteworthy that serious leisure is pursued for the most part in institutional and organizational settings: state institutions (choirs, orchestras, ensembles at the universities (Spb/ B), project choir (B), drawing courses by the academy (Spb), state art and musical schools (Spb)), private studios (dance – Spb/B) and private musical college (Spb) or non-commercial institutions (independent youth choir, jazzchoir, boys choir – Spb/B). There are only few examples when young people are engaged in their favorite pastimes independently from any establishment: individually (producing music (B) or singing at home (Spb), making pictures (B)) or taking part in self-organized group (choir (B), a rock band (B), instrumental band (Spb)). On the other hand, there are also intermediate cases – Natalia in a dance studio (Spb, 27) and Dima in an amateur theatre (Spb, 34) – when serious leisure is pursued in some institutional framework, but has elements of self-organization. Young people attend studio and theatre not only for some classes or training, but are engaged in the whole work of the organization: Natalia also teaches, takes part in managing the studio and preparation for the concert and competitions; Dima does not only act in plays, but takes part in preparation of the stage, lights, hall for the audience and in common discussions after the performances. Cinema studio, organized by Veronica (Spb, 24), is closer to a self-organized group, as it was created solely on her own initiative and effort and is independent in the film-making projects. At the same time it is affiliated to the university to which they apply for administrative and financial support, therefore it cannot be considered as a totally independent association. A particular case is the serious leisure activity of Masha (Spb, 30): she attends private musical school, but her main interest lies in bel canto singing, which she is developing through individual private classes with a highly qualified teacher.

There is some specificity of German and Russian institutional context in regards to serious leisure pursuits. In Berlin choirs and orchestras, which the majority of respondents are engaged in, are much more standardized: the regime and structure of the rehearsal are similar, the schedule of performances and the procedure of preparation also resemble one another and even socializing activities have much in common. As a rule, the rehearsal takes place one a week in the evening and lasts 3h with a 15 min break in the middle. At the end of the rehearsal (every week, every second week, every month) participants usually go to some bar to have a talk and something to drink. The division into voice groups and instrumental groups is common, and in big collectives usually a leader responsible for the group is selected for a fixed period of time. In university choirs and orchestras concerts are normally held 2 times per year and in addition one bigger concert trip is undertaken annually. As it requires additional preparation, more rehearsals are scheduled before the concert. Choirs and some orchestras sometimes move to some place outside of the city for the weekend to have an intensive rehearsal for a couple of days. In choirs organized around projects – there is an independent youth choir, where participants sign up for programmes interesting for them, and a project choir for the young which is specifically created for 2 years only – the activity is regulated somewhat differently. In the first case the rehearsal structure remains, but they usually have more intensive schedule of performances as


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well as rehearsals before the concert (every day). The second choir gathers once in 2-3 months, but the training lasts several days and then is followed by concert trips. Anyway, in most cases the choir and orchestra activity is tied to a future concert or planned performance and focused on the preparation of the programme for the event. Their rehearsal time is devoted to practicing, which is solely regulated by the conductor, while little contribution from the participants is possible, with no time wasted on talk, and communication takes place in the breaks or after the session.

In Saint-Petersburg respondents involved in music production activities usually attend some educational establishment (musical school, college, choir, ensemble), but there is no unified standard format and their inner rules, regimes, schedules and training practices considerably vary. In one singing group it is common to have longer rehearsals for 4-5 hours with a flexible structure and informal arrangements within, when training can be interrupted by talks and drinking tea, and the list of songs is not strictly fixed. In another choir there is a more rigid structure, with clear sequence of activities, including warming up, practicing the appointed songs, interrupted only by the comments and instructions of the leader. Even within musical schools and colleges, though they are expected to impose the same requirements and standards, rules and procedures vary in many respects. The structure and regime of the classes, organization of concerts, and communication with students are different and often depend on the personal attitude and professional practices of the individual teacher. While one teacher adheres to formal aspects of training the student, has more rigid structure of classes and fixed requirements, the other one might engage in more less formalized manner of teaching, with freer structure of the class, more possibilities for discussion, personalized advice outside of class time, student meetings and performances in a non-official setting. It is noteworthy that respondents playing instruments in Saint-Petersburg are associated with musical school or musical college, so the practice of playing is individually-oriented, taking place during classes or at home, though one young woman (Larisa, 28) is also playing in self-organized music band. In Berlin, on the contrary, the realization of the playing takes place in orchestras, in collective music production; though some young people are also engaged in individual classes with a private teacher. Young people living in Saint-Petersburg, involved in singing and in playing instruments, participate in concerts too, but the activity itself which happens during the classes as well as outside of rehearsal time is not so tied to and structured by the planned performance activities; it is not only devoted to practicing the pieces selected for the programme, but includes other compositions and techniques, not specifically intended for the concert.

In general, Berlin’s institutional settings where music-producing serious leisure takes place are more standardized and formalized and are directed at collective production of music. In Saint-Petersburg the rules and procedures among institutions vary to a bigger extent and allow more space for an informal approach. We can also conclude that institutions in Berlin are more oriented on performance and demonstration of results to the audience, when serious


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leisure activity becomes more tied to and determined by the planned concerts. In Saint Petersburg, on the contrary, the focus is on the training and activity itself, with some performances before an audience too, but these do not exercise a major influence on how serious leisure is realized.

Another important feature is that in Berlin the institutions for singing or playing are more competitive. In many cases respondents reported difficulties in getting into the choir or the orchestra and mentioned the problem of the scarcity of places, high requirements and fear of the selection procedure. For example, Robert (31) and Meili (26) were able to get into the university choir only on the second attempt as there were no places and only one vacancy before. In addition, there is a strong competition for entrance sometimes: for example, when passing an examination, Robert was competing with 7 other persons for a place, and “just passed” the audition, despite the fact that he was able to sing from notes on the sheet of paper and correctly identify the sounds and the intervals between them from hearing. Maria (31) mentioned that “it’s usually difficult to get into the choir” because of competitiveness and it is common to have a probation period for new members in the choir. Hans (25) shared the experience of applying and trying to pass the exam for one of the orchestras three times, but without success. Thus, there is a precondition for starting serious leisure: young people should already have quite a high level of skills and be capable of showing their abilities in the exam or audition. But even having good skills is not sufficient when there are many applicants and competition is strong, therefore young people develop their own strategies to deal with the situation. For example, Astrid (26), considering the competition factor, decided to concentrate her efforts on oboe as a more rare instrument instead of piano, although she played both instruments well enough and even liked piano better at some point of her life: “Oboe is a specific instrument and you can have a chance to enter anywhere. I never had a problem to enter an orchestra”. Hans (25) changed his initial desire to join the big orchestra and preferred to go to the smaller one because they do not require one to pass a test. Maria (31), despite having a degree in music and practicing singing for many years, was delaying her intention to go into the choir for a year upon moving to Berlin because she was afraid that “no choir will take me” and felt “unconfident about my music skills”. She was also afraid of the examination therefore needed support to realize her wish which finally was provided by her friend: “I really needed someone to motivate me, to say – ok, let’s go to this choir and see what happens. And it was the case”. Thus, in many cases institutions operate like firms on the market governed by the principles of supply and demand: when they have abundant supply, they put high requirements for newcomers; when they experience “lack of staff” for certain roles, the requirements can be considerably relaxed. As a result, young people with more common instruments get into disadvantageous position, but persons with more specific and rare instruments are in a more favorable situation, but in the condition of high competition everybody has to struggle for a place.

In Saint-Petersburg the entrance to the institutions where one can sing or engage in playing the instruments is not so competitive. For example, in the


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music school there are special classes for grown-ups where basically anybody, even people who have never studied music or played the instrument before, can apply. There are entrance examinations to start studying, but they do not presuppose specific knowledge or skills, but test the sense of rhythm and general hearing abilities of the applicant. Though some respondents did not face any difficulties in entering the school (Anya, 19), other respondents reported difficulties in exams and big competition for some musical specialties – piano or vocal classes (Andrey, 24). Nevertheless, all the respondents who were interviewed managed to get into the musical school being complete beginners and never playing their instruments before. People engaged in singing also did not mention any difficulties in getting accepted into a choir or ensemble.

From the analysis of institutional settings of Berlin and Saint Petersburg where music producing serious leisure takes place we can conclude that Berlin institutions are more standardized, formalized, professionalized, performance-oriented and competitive. At the same time institutions in Saint Petersburg have greater variance in their standards, rules and procedures and more opportunities for informal regulations as well as are more open for entrance. They are also not so focused on concerts as the result and final point of training, but devote more attention on the process itself and allow wider range of music practice activities.

As for the dancing studios, commercial companies teaching ballroom and latino dancing have similar formats in both cities: participants can choose the frequency of attendance, level and intensity of training, and the structure of the lesson, schedules and sequence of activities do not differ much. Irish dancing studio, contemporary dance studio and tribal fusion classes have their own particular features, also caused by the specificity of the dance itself, but might be united by more informal approach to the teaching and more intensive and close communication between its members as well as between teachers and members. They do not impose any requirements upon new participants and are ready to teach them dancing from the beginner level. Institutions in other spheres of serious leisure activities are too few to say much about. Drawing courses at the Academy of Arts as a state institution are marked by formalized rules and have fixed structure of the class. They also select applicants by means of entrance examinations where the candidate should demonstrate his works and afterwards have strict requirements for progressing from one academic year to the other. On the other hand, they do not seem to be too demanding and at the entrance test the general ability to draw rather than specific skills. Both young people, who were interviewed, were able to get accepted to the courses at the first attempt, though one of them (Viktor, 26) has a very limited background in drawing and never attended any art school before. Respondents engaged in other pastimes sometimes specifically underlined the openness of their institutions: for example, Nadya (24) mentioned that it was not a problem to continue attending classes in a state art school after she had officially graduated from it; Dima (34), a member of the amateur theatre, told in the interview that “There is no selection. Everyone can come”. The important


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point for us is that institutions for serious leisure activities in Saint Petersburg are quite open and do not have high levels of competitiveness. It means that serious leisure is more accessible for young people without special training, education or developed skills in their favorite activity, and they can start it as complete beginners.

Bearing in mind the specific features of institutional involvement in serious leisure discussed above, it is important to characterize young people’s activities in terms of their duration. Duration can be divided into two categories: the duration of the involvement in the activity in the current institution or the duration of the involvement in the activity as serious leisure in general. While duration is one of the expressions of the commitment to the activity, we now consider the whole duration of involvement in serious leisure as it indicates the period of life when the activity was undertaken for the first time and might reveal some aspects of institutional embeddedness of serious leisure.

In Berlin the majority of pastimes (10 out of 15) have been pursued, more or less regularly, with occasional breaks, for more than 10 years, while only 4 pastimes have been lasting for a relatively short period of time (1,5-3 years), and one for more than 7 years. Serious leisure was started mostly in school time or even earlier (10 respondents). Two girls, Astrid (26) and Meili (26), combine the activity which they have been engaged in since childhood (oboe and singing respectively) with a new occupation they have begun during their MA degree (choir singing and dancing). Only three persons (Mario, 32; Olga, 24; Frank, 30) began their activities later in life, when they were already grown-ups: during their first year after school (Mario, Frank) or after a second attempt to get higher education (Olga). One interesting circumstance is that all three persons pursue their hobbies in an independent, not institutionally organized way. At the same time other young men who are involved in self-organized musical collectives (Peter (27), choir; Robert (31), choir; Leo (26), rock band) have a long experience of serious leisure: Peter has been singing for 22 years, since he was 5 years old, starting before school; Robert has been attending the choir for more than 13 years from school years; Leo has been playing in a band for 10 years, since he was 16 and a high school pupil. Considering the experience of leaders of self-organized groups, we can see that their situations are also different in terms of early institutional involvement and experience of it. Leo started playing in a band as a teenager; it has always been his conscious, independent decision and self-chosen activity from the beginning and realized outside of any institution from the start. Peter, on the contrary, was doing singing in the school choir until he left school (for 13 years) and afterwards attended other choirs before organizing his own group. Nevertheless their stories have much in common as both persons were not satisfied with the existing institutional rules and practices of music and it influenced their subsequent decision to found their own collectives. Leo tried to study guitar and bass guitar for several years, but quit as he was not satisfied with the approach to music there and “went on my personal taste and style”. For Peter the first experience with the school choir was of the most significance: participation in a rigid and strict choir structure (“you didn’t dare not to go there”) with a great


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deal of psychological pressure (“it was a psychological stress you can’t imagine”) was one of the motives for arranging his own collective on a totally different basis: “I am doing [the choir] today because I wanted to do it completely the other way around”.

In Saint-Petersburg, on the contrary, the majority of serious leisure pastimes (11 out of 16 or 68,7%) were started after school: in the first university years (4), last university years (1) or already after graduation from the university (6). There are only five pastimes which originated during the school time (drawing, modeling with clay, singing, folklore singing, playing the violin), and they have developed from attending state music or art schools, boys choir and children’s “palaces of creativity”. Both groups, who started their favorite pastimes at school or afterwards, include institutionally as well as self-organized activities. We do not observe the same pattern as in Berlin, that early involvement in serious leisure results in its institutionally organized pursuit afterwards and that young people who start their pastime at a mature age prefer to do it outside of institutions or create the organization themselves. Please see the schemes depicting the information about each informant below.

Scheme 6. Start of serious leisure activity and current institutional involvement (Berlin) Source: scheme by I.A.

Starting in school Starting after school

SO

IF

IO

Helen, 26, singing

Astrid, 26, oboe

Hans, 25, cello Miriam, 23,

dancing Maria, 31, singing

Mario, 32, music

Olga, 24, music

Frank, 30, photo

Leo, 26, band

Astrid, 26, singing

Meili, 26, dance

Peter, 27, choir

Robert, 31, singing

Robert 31, singing

Miriam, 23, viola

Meili, 26, dance

Peter, 27, choir

Andreas, 27, singing


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Scheme 7. Start of serious leisure activity and current institutional involvement (Saint Petersburg) Source: scheme by I.A.

SO – self-organized activities; IF – intermediate forms of organizations;

IO – institutionally organized activities; green figures – males, yellow - females

Therefore we can speak about differences between two cities in terms of the duration and origins of serious leisure activity: while in Berlin young people are for the most part experienced players or singers who have been accustomed to their hobby from childhood, many respondents in Saint-Petersburg have begun their serious leisure activity much later, already after school or graduation from the university, in many cases starting a new activity which they have never tried before. It partly supports the conclusions discussed above for Berlin as well as Saint-Petersburg institutions for amateur music production. Berlin's institutions are more standardized, professionalized and competitive; therefore only classes from early childhood or school years may enable one to get sufficient skills to be able to take part in even amateur music production. In this respect self-organized activities become the alternative to institutional involvement, where one can escape the standardizing structure and necessity to demonstrate and upgrade one’s capacities. On the contrary, institutions in Saint- Petersburg are characterized by greater variety of formats and more

Group activity Individual activity

Lena, 25, dancing

Started in school Started after school

Dima, 34, theatre

Anya, 19, singing Nadya, 24,

dancing

Veronica, 24, cinema

Natalia, 27, dancing

Larisa, 28, violin

SO

IF

IO

Victor, 26, drawing

Dasha, 27, violin

Anya, 19, guitar

Masha, 30, singing

Kolya, 23, drawing

Lesha, 18, singing

Nadya, 24, modelling with clay

Andrey, 24, violin

Yulia, 32, dancing

Lesha, 18, singing

Larisa, 28, violin


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space for informal regulations. Therefore self-organization does not become an alternative and opposition to institutional involvement: they are often combined or are merged in some intermediate form as discussed above (example of amateur theatre and dance studio). Though institutions have entrance tests in some cases, they do not impose high requirements as a rule and are able to incorporate young people of a more mature age wishing to learn something from beginner level. It supports the thesis of a more open character of institutions in our city.

3.3. Serious Leisure: Patterns of Involvement and Contribution to the Biographical Project

Here we intend to go beyond the external properties characterizing serious leisure activity and analyze it more profoundly using the model of serious leisure introduced above. The model incorporates important features of serious leisure distinguished by Stebbins, but modifies them and integrates them into a new form, where they are more structured and interconnected. There are several main components in the model: investments or what the person puts into the activity to begin and to maintain the involvement; consequences of activity, positive (benefits or rewards) and negative (costs). We pay special attention to the balance between inputs and outcomes of the activity and offer a typology of patterns of involvement in serious leisure. We also consider how young people become aware of and manage their engagement in serious leisure and distinguish several strategies of behavior.

3.3.1. Investments in serious leisure: Financial and material inputs

Serious leisure is usually associated with considerable investments of various resources into the pastime. We divided them into two types: tangible (time, money, material objects) and intangible (physical, emotional, intellectual effort). We see some interconnections between them, but notice that that they are not of equal importance, but have different significance for the pursuit of the activity.

We start considering investments from more simple ones: finances and material objects necessary for serious leisure as one of the types of investment. This type of investment is not viewed as a major and more important one: respondents rarely speak about their financial spending and material inputs as significant factors characterizing or determining their activity. Yet we suppose that it is one of the indicators showing the level of commitment to the activity, especially in relation to the general financial situation of the person.

In Berlin the majority of respondents take part in university choir and orchestras. The participation fee varies from 15 to 80 euro per year: it is not a significant sum of money therefore represents more a formal arrangement. Independent choirs require approximately the same level of investment and the


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participation fee does not exceed 100 euros per year. These sums are sometimes supplemented by expenses on additional rehearsals outside of the city or concert trips. Members of the orchestra also spend money for private lessons, which is more expensive. Generally a lesson costs 30-40 euros per hour and as they do at least once or twice a month, which means the payment for private lessons constitutes a larger part of the total financial investment. With self-organized activities the situation seems more complicated and difficult in terms of material investments as independent music production requires equipment, instruments, place for the rehearsals, and young people have to provide these things by themselves. If we consider young people engaged in individual music production, we will see that their investments vary considerably. Olga (24) has low expenses as she possesses necessary instruments from her previous pastimes and creates music at home, using quite simple recording equipment and a computer programme to work with the sound afterwards. Frank (30) has changed several cameras to find the one most appropriate for him and finally decided on an analogue camera as a final choice because he enjoys the materiality of photographs. It means that he has to spend additional money for the films and processing pictures afterwards, but he tries to keep the investment on the moderate level. Mario (32), on the contrary, invests a lot of finances into his serious leisure: he rents a space for the weekly rehearsals and keeps several instruments simultaneously to be able to produce the sound he needs (he played 4 guitars at the moment we spoke). He also arranges the trips to the EU countries to perform live music and this way to promote his music among people, but bears the biggest part of the expenses himself. The interesting point is that these three young people attach great importance to their activity and spend a lot of time on it, but it is not reflected in financial expenses. Probably, it could be explained by the fact that their income also differs a great deal: while Mario is a programmer and admits that his salary is big enough to allow him to pay for his music hobby, Frank is unemployed (or was at the moment of the interview) and before was also engaged in low or moderately qualified jobs with part-time or flexible working hours, which are not highly paid. Olga’s situation is not advantageous in terms of money either: she works as a part-time social worker and her earnings barely suffice to cover even basic expenses; she experiences lack of money at the end of the month quite often. Thus the actual income of young people limits their possibility to financially invest in their activity. Speaking about self-organized groups, rock band (Leo, 26) and the choir (Peter, 27), we see that they are in a balanced stage when they do not have many expenses and cover them by the financial return of their activity. The rock band was formed 10 years ago, they had instruments at that point and arranged their own place for rehearsals, so they do not have to pay for this. They also receive some remuneration when occasionally performing before an audience, giving concerts in other locations or selling their music via internet. Though not able to earn much with their music production and not aiming to do that, they have developed a rule that in case of some additional activity incurring expenses they need to calculate carefully and ensure that they are not suffering financially: “Our first rule is that you have to make calculations on the costs and you should not lose money. I


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don’t need to earn money from this activity, I live on my own […], and that’s ok, but least we don’t have to lose money” (Leo, 26). The choir is not associated with significant expenses either : they rehearse in their homes and do not need any instruments, only a piano sometimes, and sheet music.. Though initially performing for free, with the growing number of events and activities, they also established a rule that they “don’t do unpaid jobs” and need at least to cover their travel expenses and somehow justify time invested in additional rehearsals: “People don’t have to give money every time, but they need to give something back” (Peter, 27).

Based on the example of young people in Berlin we can see that the amount of financial investments is not particularly connected with the institutional or self-organizational character of serious leisure. It seems that young people participating in orchestras have larger material investments than individuals involved in self-organized activities. They need to train themselves individually and cover the expenses for additional classes to be able to play in a big group of people. In self-organized groups, on the contrary, expenses become shared and when earning some money, they contribute it to the activity reducing the financial burden if any.

Young people in Saint Petersburg have somewhat different picture of financial and material investments. For institutionally organized pastimes costs vary from 500 rub (student fee for music school) to 6400 rub (private singing lessons) per month, with many persons spending 3000 rub (dance), 4000 rub (dance/ drawing) or 6000 rub (regular fee for music school) on their hobby per month. It means that young people in Saint Petersburg often spend 80-100 euro per month on their serious leisure, which is much more than in Berlin. And these expenses are normally perceived by informants as quite high and difficult to manage. For instance, Masha (31) tells that “it’s expensive, very expensive” and adds that “it’s hard. Really hard. Almost all my money, before grants, it was an existence at the boundary, on the edge. […] But it didn't stop me, absolutely didn't stop. When I thought, what to choose, I just chose.. and it was ok”. Yulia (32) speaks about expenses on dancing classes in the following way: “naturally, it costs enormous money, the same, as to study at the university. Every month 4000 rubles for evening classes. It results in a good semester. Also costumes for 3 min, for the performance, and something else. So it means very huge investments, which in fact don’t give any profit”. It is interesting that in self-organized activities young people do not encounter significant financial costs: for example, Veronica (24) can secure some funding for the cinema studio from the university it is affiliated to and cover the costs of equipment and props they constantly need for the shooting process. Lesha (18) sings and records his songs at home with the help of a computer programme, he uses background music and does not need to play it himself. The only thing he invested his money in is a good microphone. In the amateur theatre and Irish dance studio the situation is similar to the self-organized group activities of young people in Berlin: they are able to earn some money with their pastime (theatre – performances; studio – teaching) and this way to cover the main expenses on the renting the premises. Though members of the organization do not receive a


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salary, they do not need to pay for their involvement and pursue the favorite pastime for free: “now we have very low rent, and still there is almost nothing left, only for the pure enthusiasm” (Natalia, 27).

In the case of Saint-Petersburg we see that young people engaged in institutionally organized serious leisure, often make sufficient financial investments into the activity, while persons involved in self-organized hobbies are usually able to reduce their expenses considerably. They still do not become economically profitable and do not strive to achieve this, but by participation in the market and offering their services or by cooperation with state institutions, they can at least compensate their investments.

3.3.2. Investments in serious leisure: Time and effort as major inputs

Time is far more important resource and more vital type of investment. How much time is devoted to the chosen hobby, how this time is spent, scheduled and structured becomes the major feature of serious leisure and constitutes its special character. Respondents differ much in the amount of time dedicated to their favorite pastime as well as in its regimentation.

In Berlin the majority of respondents are involved in music production activities in the choirs and orchestras, which have a standard and fixed schedule, as we discussed when considering institutional aspects of involvement in serious leisure. Therefore it is common to do serious leisure once a week, in the evening on one of the working days, for three hours. This practice is so customary and widespread, that, when the rehearsal lasts less (with some choirs: 1,5-2 hours), it is perceived as insufficient and even stressful as it impedes the work and progress with the activity: “I find it maybe not enough for the choir. I’m used to 3-hour long rehearsal with a 10 min break” (Maria, 31); “It is hard for me to just rehearse a bit. If I am here, I want to work with you and I want to get further” (Andreas, 27). Another common pattern is to rehearse during weekends: some choirs, which consist of members living in different locations, adopt it as the main regime (for example, former school choir, attended by Andreas, gathers all participants for the whole Saturday (10.00-18.00)); other choirs (university and some independent choirs) use it as a rare means to do intensive preparation before the concert and went out of the city for the weekend once in a semester. As a rule, rehearsals before the concerts are conducted more frequently and intensively, so time investments before the performance increase. Young people also need some time for the concerts themselves and for the concert trips, but they happen quite rarely so they perceive the time which is regularly and weekly spent on activity as their major investment. In project choirs it could be more time intensive as they have concerts more often and one may engage in several projects simultaneously. Helen (26), a member of the project-oriented choir, experienced tensions when having to rehearse every day before the concert: “before the concert it’s usually very stressful in the week before, because the conductor is always pushing,


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pushing, pushing to really reach the best quality, the best possible quality so it’s really tiring because it’s intensive and it’s every day”.

Young people engaged in orchestras and choirs also invest their personal time in addition to the rehearsal: for training at home and for the private classes with the teacher. Orchestra members typically need to invest more time in their activity than choir participants: choir members rarely report that they spend additional time preparing for the rehearsals and have additional individual classes to improve their skills (only Helen (26) mentioned it as a regular and important component of training); on the contrary, for young people engaged in orchestras it is typical to systematically take private classes (an hour in 2-3 weeks) and to devote time to playing at home (usually a couple of hours on weekends), therefore their serious leisure is more time-consuming. Respondents feel the need and responsibility to spend more time on practicing the instrument as a necessary means to maintain sufficient level for playing in orchestra, and it may cause additional worries and even feelings of guilt. Astrid (26) who attends both the orchestra and the choir and has experience of both pastimes expresses it this way:

“So it’s a bit difficult for me to practice at home for the rehearsals, above all to practice the oboe, because singing is in the group and you can adapt to your group and […] normally we are learning all together and you can do it when you go there once a week and before the concerts you concentrate more. In the orchestra it’s normally more difficult, you should practice some time at home and that’s a bit difficult for me because when I come back from work the other three days, normally I’m tired and I can’t get myself to get out the instrument and play for another half an hour or so. So I really do it once a week perhaps on weekend or I don’t. And that’s a bit a problem as I should do a bit of practice. […] When I’m at the rehearsal, I always think I should have practiced more. Yes, it works when you practice at home it’s really better, but I can’t do it often so I am a bit frustrated”.

The chance to do a favorite pastime in a fixed period of time, clear structure and steady schedule of the activity is seen as attractive for some young people. Maria (31) told that it’s “the most reasonable type of thing” and “the most suitable for me, the use of my free time in a sort of a structure”. She appreciates the rationality and productive use of the rehearsal time and is dissatisfied when due to something unexpected happening to the choir (for example, when their room is busy) they do not start in time: “this spontaneousness is sometimes a bit of a disadvantage”. Another good example is the case of Meili (26), who values the regularity and predictability of the choir sessions conducted every week and feels that it helps to make life in general more certain and predictable: “It’s a routine which keeps your life on track. Once a week there is a choir meeting, you know those people will be there and you know what you will do. It stabilized my life”.

The situation is different with the self-organized groups as they can choose the time, regulate it by themselves and establish the regime which is optimal for them. In case of the rock band (Leo, 26) they have developed a habit of


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meeting for the weekend (almost every weekend, 3-4 times in a month) and play starting from Friday night, then for the whole Saturday and part of Sunday. It is caused by the fact that all members of the band live in different locations, and it would be problematic for them to meet during the week, and became also possible because they were able to secure a stable place for the rehearsals. In addition to weekends rehearsal they also spend some time on playing at home and communicating and discussing the ideas of music which come to them. In the case of the choir organized by Peter (27) they adopted the same 3-hour-length rehearsal which is typical for choirs. At the same time the inner structure and regime of the rehearsal is different: it is more flexible and there is not an absolute leader who guides the process; the responsibility is shared between the members, and it requires more attention, concentration and responsibility from all of them. Different regime and structure of the rehearsal results in a different effect on participants and their feeling of time: “in chamber choir I’m sometimes very bored […] it’s too long. As for [our choir] rehearsals, they are much too short […]. You have to concentrate all the time because you are doing it together all the time” (Peter, 27). The self-organized choir is more time-consuming as they have concerts more often and spend more time on preparation for the performance meeting 2-3 times per week. In some periods they had such an intensive schedule of events that it was necessary to rehearse every day, which was too tiring and stressful for the participants. It required a lot of time and effort, learning new pieces for each occasion; the workload was so huge that even with considerable time investments they were not coping and could not prepare well enough. Oneyoung woman, one of the choir participants, mentioned it several times during the discussion: “sometimes we had rehearsals almost everyday, and it was a lot […]. It was crazy, he [Peter] accepted everything, but we were never 100% happy because we didn’t have enough time to rehearse. […] After a while we figured out it was too much because people were getting annoyed about it as well as getting stressed”.

Time spending and its regimentation are different for young people who are pursuing their serious leisure activities individually and are self-organized. Their time is marked by the absence of strict structure and regulation: they begin the activity when they feel inclined to it and can stay engaged as long as they wish. For example, Frank (30) goes on photography sessions with his bike or undertakes travelling to other cities when he is “in the mood”, he appreciates the opportunity to do it freely when he likes. Olga (24) specifically does not plan her creative activity and just starts it when she feels up to it. She is also attentive to her own emotions and psychological life becomes the major determinant of the time regime of serious leisure: “I don’t decide, that today, I just sit down and it’s all. Sometimes it happens, that I don’t write for a week, I’m sad or something has occurred, and then I really need to decide, I say to myself, you must do something […] or you’ll forget how to write songs”. For Mario (32) possibility to do music whenever he wishes and regulate the time and efforts spent on activity by himself means the ability to manage your life and be independent and brings an emancipation from world of work, where “You don’t have any freedom, you just do what people tell you. […] You have no freedom of choice […]. Basically, I’m not my own boss.” Although it might


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seem that the serious leisure becomes irregular with such a free and not systematic approach, but in fact it often results in more frequent, regular and intensive involvement in comparison to institutionally organized activities. Mario (32) and Olga (24) spend almost every day for singing, playing or composing at home and also dedicate several hours on one of the weekend days. Mario rents a special space for the rehearsals on Sunday, and it forms a scheduled part of the activity for him. He also organizes performances in Berlin and arranges concert trips to other EU countries, which means tremendous time investments not only on music production and performance activities, but on communication and managerial work. This way serious leisure starts to extend and covers almost all lifetime: even during our talk in a café he checked emails several times and even replied to some of them. Olga’s serious leisure becomes more or less incorporated in everyday life activities and structured by the routines of the day: “I think that I sit down to it regularly, yea, for example, when I come from work, in general it is perhaps the first thing I do, I just sit down and listen to what I’ve done” (Olga, 24).

Analyzing serious leisure of young people in Berlin, we can infer that time investments are not only measured by their amount, but also by their inner organization. Respondents do not only spend certain number of hours for their pastimes, but this time is particularly structured and regulated. The time is therefore felt and experienced differently by the participants. While institutional settings impose quite standard and rigid regime of activity, self-organized individual and group pastimes are characterized by the flexibility of the regime and the possibility for self-management. It has a direct impact on the effects of serious leisure: in institutionally organized pastimes the necessity to spend time on individual training can cause frustration, the intensive preparation before the concerts can result in stress, but, on the other hand, this certain time regime is experienced as beneficial as it means more productive work and it can become a stabilizing factor in one’s life. In self-organized activities there are more opportunities for self-regulation and it is felt as unrestrained, more liberating and empowering, but may result in overwork. In addition, for groups it means that the responsibility for the activity is shared, therefore the involvement is more profound and such effects as mutual learning and closer friendship ties may emerge. So the amount of time devoted to the activity and its inner structure and regulation is one of the major factors determining the costs and benefits of serious leisure; it also implies that they are dependent on the type of organization (institutional or self-organized) to a big extent. Serious leisure pursued within an institutional framework is based on an institutional schedule and regime of time and therefore is less subject to the influence of external circumstances; it becomes a sort of solid ground for the person, consistent and steady, providing protection from fluctuations in the wider world. But self-organized serious leisure might be more vulnerable in this respect: as it lacks a steady structure to rely on and is regulated by the person himself/ herself, then changes in personal situation in terms of family relations, employment, studies etc can have greater impact on serious leisure.


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In Saint Petersburg respondents spend more time on serious leisure than in Berlin, and it happens across all types of activities, including music production, dancing, drawing, theatre and film-making, including institutionally and self-organized, individual and group activities. It is a rare practice to do serious leisure once per week: classes, sessions or rehearsals are typically more frequent and take place at least 2-3 times per week, with each sessions lasting 1,5-3 hours. Only Nadya (24) attends a studio to work with clay once a week on Saturday, but she spends approximately 5 hours at a time. There are also several persons who are involved in serious leisure much more often: 4 times per week (1-3 hours each time) or almost every day.

Organization of time is also of considerable importance in the case of Saint-Petersburg. Institutionally organized activities are structured according to the logic of the institution: for example, all students of musical school have 2 classes of playing the instrument (1 hour length each) per week and in addition several disciplines covering other aspects of musical education (solffeggio, musical literature, choir, orchestra); young people attending drawing courses have a schedule of 3 sessions per week (2 – on working days, 1 – on Saturday), each of them lasting for three hours; choir and ensemble have rehearsals 3 times per week (each lasting 1,5 and 3-4 hours). But, on the other side, institutional rules leave some space for variations and enable the person to construct the regime of the activity convenient for him/ her, at least to a certain extent. For instance, in the musical school young people can choose the time for playing classes among several options; they can attend all additional classes if they wish or drop some of them (choir, orchestra). Drawing courses also offer a number of options for choice during the working week: one can choose any 2 days among the offered four and can also come to an earlier session starting at 16.00 or join a later session at 19.00. Ensemble allows flexibility in terms of time as well: one can attend three days a week if one wants to, or limit participation to two or even one day per week; also there is seldom a fixed start of the rehearsal, it is agreed for each session in advance, but if one is not able to make it to the appointed time, one is still welcome to join whenever possible. Dance studios also offer many opportunities for self-regulation of the amount time spent on activity and its schedule during the week: for example, in the period of intensive learning Yulia (32) was attending dancing classes 5 days a week for 3 hours, but gradually, as she has been advancing her skills and achieved high level of mastery, she reduced the frequency to two times per week leaving more time for physical training at home; Lena (25) attended dancing sessions only 2 times per week (1,5 hours), but supplemented them with different master-classes and participation in dancing projects. So institutional settings of serious leisure in Saint-Petersburg are not too rigid and strictly fixed, they impose some time structure and regime of activities, but leave some opportunities for choice and regulation of time inputs according to personal aims and desires.

Many serious leisure activities presuppose additional time on training at home. If we consider young people involved in institutionally organized pastimes, it particularly concerns playing the musical instruments. But the amount of time


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respondents spend on their individual practice varies considerably. For example, Anya (19) learning to play the guitar does not devote much time to it, but tries to do it regularly: “At first I tried to play every day, now it doesn’t always happen. I try to play every other day. I don’t play very much, I find for about half an hour, it is just right, if it is so regular”. Other young people try to practice the instrument as often and much as possible. Andrey (24) set an aim to play at least 4 hours per day and tries to adhere to this rule, though varies the length of training from 2 to 6 hours depending on the circumstances. But even when he was tired after work, he found opportunity to play the instrument: “When I came from work at midnight, I didn’t want anything, to eat, to sleep, nothing, and had to get up at 7 o'clock in the morning and go again […] Still I stood somehow, already falling, in fact dreaming with a violin in the hands, but stood and tried to memorize something, in order not to give up the instrument, to continue to develop a bit”. Dasha (27) and Larisa (28) expressed concern that it is formally forbidden to play after 23.00. As a result, Larisa devotes only an hour per day for individual practice, after full-time work and two hours of studying in musical college, but still feels that it is not sufficient: “I have an hour per day, but, of course, it's not enough for me. For me it would be perfect to have at least 2 hours” and adds that “I would like to spend all free time on practice”. Dasha also regrets that “she does not practice so much as she would like to” and, because of neighbors, can rarely play the violin in the late evening, therefore sometimes she goes to her parents’ place in the morning before work to be able to play. Kolya (23) attending drawing courses limits his involvement by doing the work during classes and does not specifically train his skills at home, only if there is a need to draw a postcard or a picture as a gift. Viktor (26) spends time on drawing at home occasionally, but it is not regular and not much, which he regrets a lot as he considers time as a measure of labor invested in the activity and a predictor of the result, thus he feels he is not progressing as fast as he wishes. With dancing time investments on individual practice vary very much: for example, Nadya (24) does not spend any time on additional training at home, while Yulia (32) tries to find opportunities for additional physical training (yoga, fitness) to supplement her dancing classes (“it all needs to be combined (параллелить – Rus), one needs to devote time for that”), and Lena (25), experiencing a lack of free space at home, has the intention to rent a hall for practicing dancing.

In the institutional settings which incorporate some elements of self-organization, opportunities for individual time-management are wider. In the amateur theatre, rehearsals take place every day as they have performances every weekend, but each member can come in any day and as many days as he/she wishes: it depends mostly on the participation in plays and on interest in general. Dima (34) attends rehearsals twice a week as a rule and also visits performances on weekends, even if he is not acting in them. Sometimes he and other actors may arrange to meet earlier than the regular start of the rehearsal to work on some part additionally. He emphasized that “we don’t have any contracts, it’s all voluntary”, but at the same time he told that it is not possible to be absent from the theatre even for a month and “even if you don’t have a part and no rehearsals, you need to come, to help, to be in the collective”. One


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needs to demonstrate interest and commitment as otherwise it will be understood that person “will not invest, it will not be possible to do a play with him, no ensemble will form”. This way, formal institutional regulation is minimal, but informal obligations arise: instead of determining the minimum amount of time one needs to be at rehearsals, the responsibility for managing time is passed to the individual himself/ herself; though not stated explicitly, one is expected to maintain participation at a certain level to continue involvement in the theatre. Another case is the situation of Natalia (27) who is engaged in Irish dance in a dance studio: she started to train there as a student, then began teaching after two years and now has been a member of the school for already 7 years. She became one of the senior dancers there and is also involved in administrative work in the school, both in management and financial issues. Her current time investments into the activity are very high: she has training sessions 4 times per week for 2 hours each and also does teaching for the beginner group 3 times per week (1,5 hours). But she is able to regulate the intensity of her involvement – together with other senior dancers they discuss the schedule of classes and divide the teaching classes between them so that the workload is tolerable – and even considers current time inputs as minimal. The training classes which she does for herself also contain aspects of self-management as they are comprised of the group of senior dancers, who are sufficiently advanced and are able to train each other: “We have a teacher. But if she is absent, we train ourselves, somebody has to lead the process, switch on the music, tell what we are going to dance […]. Anybody from the senior group can do it, but we usually choose and say, you are leading today”.

Young people who are engaged in self-organized serious leisure tend to invest more time in their activities. Lesha (18) is spending almost every evening on singing and recording his own songs and can do it for several hours, till late at night, even if there are other obligations to be met: “I can’t do paper works at home. If I liked the song, that’s all, I need to record it. Even if I have a test tomorrow, I will record it all the same, then process it and send it to ten people, and only then sit down to studies. And only then, when everybody is sleeping, and I am not able to sing any more”. Veronica is not only the devoted amateur film-maker, but a leader at the cinema studio she created, therefore her time investments in the activity are huge and in addition very unregulated. Sometimes serious leisure occupies several whole days when the shooting process is going on or when there is an urgent necessity to complete the work and compose a whole film: “We finished in a very funny, crazy way. We together haven’t slept for 3 or 4 nights in a row”. Masha (30) and her serious leisure is a special case in terms of time investments: she takes bel canto classes from a private teacher and therefore is excluded from institutional rules, has only to adhere to the rules imposed by the teacher. Her involvement in terms of time is therefore only managed by herself and by the teacher. As classes are quite expensive, Masha is only able to attend two classes her week, this way financial expenses become the regulator of time inputs.

Summarizing, we can conclude that young people in Saint-Petersburg devote significant time to their serious leisure activities. In some cases time


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investments are so high that start to absorb almost all free time and even interfere with the time aimed for maintaining physical existence (sleeping, eating) or subsistence activities (work, studies). So time inputs are associated with much effort as was brightly illustrated by the case of Andrey and can also lead to considerable costs (health, studies). One possible explanation of sufficient time spending lies in the specificities of institutional organization: as we observed on the case of Berlin young people who have more opportunities to regulate the amount of time and determine the regime of their pastime (self-organized) tend to invest more time in their activity. Based on the examples of respondents in Saint-Petersburg we see that not only self-organized, but institutionally organized pastimes are accompanied by greater time inputs, including tremendous spending on individual practice in some cases. We suppose that readiness to invest time is partly caused by the possibilities for self-regulation and for constructing one’s own regime of activity which are still left by institutions. Combined organizational forms also stimulate considerable time investments, providing wider possibilities for self-management. Another answer is that the benefits one gets from the activity are significant and compensate for the inputs, alternatively the level of aspirations should be quite high to justify the large amount of time spent. We will try to clear up these issues in the coming paragraphs.

We are speaking not only about the actual time spent and regime of serious leisure, but actually about how it is reflected and perceived by the respondents themselves. Sometimes quite moderate investments are felt as a heavy burden causing difficulties and stress: for example, Astrid (B, 26) who combines playing in an orchestra with singing in the choir, attends two evening rehearsals a week each lasting for three hours and feels that it is “too much” and “it’s long days” and experiences tiredness and stress, while she is not able to devote so much time to her friends and relaxation as she would like to. At the same time, even bigger time inputs are not perceived by other young people as significant and constraining. For instance, when asked about difficulties in combining full-time studies, part-time work and intensive involvement in drawing (three times per week with each session lasting for three hours) Kolya (23) replies: “It goes somehow. No, it’s normal. Everybody relaxes in his own way. […] I relax in this way. At work I rest from studies, on studies – from work. If you change the type of activity, nothing will be badly boring. To draw from morning till night – you’ll go mad”. So time investment does not have an absolute independent value in itself, it becomes small, moderate or big depending on how the individual reflects the amount of time input and evaluates its amount. So here we begin to deal with calculation and estimation activities in regards to serious leisure, and they also do not happen in a complete vacuum. On the one hand, time spent on serious leisure is weighed against the rewards one gets from the activity and difficulties and problems one needs to cope with and tolerate to go on. Thus investment is justified or not justified, the balance is achieved or not achieved, within the serious leisure itself. On the other hand, time spent on a favorite pastime is always perceived as time of life, time which could be used for other activities, meeting family and friends, resting, doing other pastimes, devoting yourself more to your work and so on. In the conditions of “choice biography”


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for young people it becomes especially important to make the right choice and spend time on the activity, which will increase their chances for the realization of their abilities and achievement of the desired position in life. Therefore time dedicated to serious leisure should be also justified in a wider context of the whole life situation. In this way, reflection on the involvement in serious leisure and investments accompanying its pursuit, time inputs in the first place, in relation to time dedicated to other life activities, connects serious leisure with the entire biographical project.

Intangible investments, which are expressed in physical, emotional or intellectual effort, constitute an important part of personal experience of serious leisure. Effort represents another term for work, which is typically opposed to leisure as relaxation and rest, and this is how some respondents speak about their pastimes: “it’s work, namely work, not a hobby, and you need to give a lot to it” (Dima, 34); “it .. goes without saying, as work. In fact it is the same work, only we don’t get paid for it […]. It is much more than hobby, obviously more” (Yulia, 32) In the interviews young people were referring to all kind of efforts necessary to pursue their favorite pastime: to maintain concentration and attention after the working day (Maria, 31); physical strength and energy for night rehearsals (Yulia, Spb, 32: “how much, how much we have already invested, how much money, energy, night rehearsals”), emotional effort to tolerate and communicate with other people in the group (Andreas, B., 27), effort to overcome disagreement and find understanding with a teacher (Kolya, Spb, 23), effort to maintain good mood (Natalia, Spb, 27, in the beginning), taking part in manual and low-qualified work (Dima, Spb, 34, in the beginning) and so on.

But the efforts young people exercise in their activities are very different in their intensity and amount. Though according to the classical notion of serious leisure, considerable effort is one of the distinctive features of the activity, we cannot say that in all cases it implies significant investments of one’s energy and abilities. For example, Andreas (B, 27) attending three choirs, actually feels some input only in respect to his former school choir where he rehearses for the whole Saturday every week. This is because for that he has to travel to another location and make an effort to achieve entrainment with other choir members. On the other hand, with another choir, he spends too little effort and therefore feels dissatisfied. In any case his effort always remains within the comfortable zone and he does not experience any difficulties. Nadya (Spb, 24) attends a studio and does modeling with clay: the pastime originated in her school time and has lasted for so many years that it comes naturally and does not need a considerable effort. At the same time, other young people invest huge amounts of energy and effort in their serious leisure which transforms it into a continuous work: “when you are thinking about one thing, it’s not as with work, when you come from home and that’s all. Here you are always at work, because you are always busy with what you need. For about 2-3 years […] I was in a state of war with myself, because it’s a very serious thing, because, you work-work-work, but then break down and doesn’t do anything”. (Andrey, 24) So we have a whole continuum of effort, from low to moderate and huge,


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including physical, emotional, communicational, intellectual or all of them together.

In some cases time becomes closely connected to the effort and starts to embody the effort because the more effort is spent on the activity, the more valuable it becomes: “On the third year you begin to become aware, how much time and energy it takes. Perhaps, you continue further only because you know, how much of your life is spent on that” (Dasha, Spb, 27). Thus time and effort merge into the integrated form of investment and form a meaningful whole for the person and are evaluated together. But in other cases time and effort work in opposite directions, when long and intensive involvement in serious leisure leads to the development of certain practices and habits and at some point it becomes easy and what was achieved through effort, now comes naturally: it was a case with Natalia (Spb, 27), when she started teaching – at first she was trying to keep herself in a good mood and needed a special effort for this, but after a while it became a habit and the desired state of mind appeared automatically.

3.3.3. Costs and benefits of serious leisure. Patterns of involvement

Costs are the next major component in the model of serious leisure. They emerge during the activity, as a result of the activity and its negative consequences. They can be expected, when the individual was aware of such an outcome when beginning serious leisure, and unexpected, when the person has to deal with the unpleasant moments and various difficulties as they arise. Usually respondents encounter both kinds of costs, but it contributes to the dissatisfaction with the chosen pastime when real costs exceed the expected ones. Costs are the outcome of investments in the activity, on the one hand, as increases in the amount of time and effort spent on serious leisure typically incur greater psychological costs as well as influencing other life activities; but costs can also be a result of too low investments (for example, low self-esteem). On the other hand, costs have a backward impact on the investments, as the more difficulties and problems appear with doing serious leisure, the more time and effort is needed to solve them; at the same time, an effort targeted at some concern can solve the difficulty altogether or reduce its sharpness. So there is a connection between costs and investments, though it can work in different directions. Monitoring and managing both becomes a task for young people in striving for optimal level of involvement in serious leisure.

We have found that all types of costs – physical, psychological and social – are experienced by respondents. Physical costs are sometimes felt by dancers (traumas) or singers (insufficient physical action as a problem), but they are quite minor. Psychological costs, sometimes mixed with physical, are more significant and frequently experienced, embracing a wide range of states. More common out of them are tiredness and feeling of being exhausted (Robert (B, 31), Maria (B,31)), anxiety and frustration of multitasking (Mario (B, 32)), too much excitement causing difficulties in sleeping (Yulia (Spb, 32), Larisa (Spb,


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28)), lack of relaxation and time for rest (Astrid (B, 26)), feeling of doubt in your abilities and being not good enough (Meili (B, 26), with dancing; Viktor (Spb, 26)). Sometimes intense negative conditions can arise: the state of inner contradictions – “war with myself” (Andrey (Spb, 24)), splitting up between two spheres of life (Peter, (B, 27)), feeling of diving into the “darker world” or the “gulf of despair” (Dasha (Spb, 27)). Social costs proved to be considerable as well: they include difficulties to find time for meeting friends and family members (Natalia (Spb, 27), Larisa (Spb, 28), Astrid (B, 26)) and the subsequent increase in social isolation (Dasha, Andrey). Second, social costs incorporate consequences affecting the life of the individual on a wider scale: when serious leisure influences professional career and hinders or contributes to the delaying of its progress (Natalia, Dasha), when serious leisure negatively affects studies (no time for proper studies – Lesha (Spb, 18); bad marks, additional examination session – Veronica); or when serious leisure interferes even everyday life existence activities (no time to buy clothes or food or for oneself – Larisa). Thus costs of serious leisure may impact the life of the individual in many spheres and create more inconsistencies and risks which the individual needs to cope with. From the examples indicated above, we can infer that high psychological and social costs are usually associated with more time-consuming and effort-intensive involvement in serious leisure, including both systematic classes at the institution and individual practice at home, while low and moderate level of involvement leads to a few and not considerable costs. But even in the case of both high investments and high costs young people still remain involved in serious leisure, therefore the question of benefits becomes important.

Respondents have reported a considerable number of various rewards which they experience as a result of serious leisure, both personal and social. Personal ones include many of the benefits indicated by Stebbins, including restoration of energy, self-confidence, development of alternative self-identity, ability to express oneself, to realize one’s potential and achieve accomplishment, to receive recognition from others and feel a connection to other people. Lasting products became one of the central rewards for Veronica (Spb, 24), Olga (B, 24), Leo (B, 26), for whom they embody the realization and extension of the self and represent the accomplishment in a material form. Social benefits include the sense of community and “fellowship” (Maria (B, 31)), formation of a circle of similarly thinking people (Veronica (Spb, 24); Larisa (Spb, 28)), a close group of friends (Natalia (Spb, 27)) formation of communication network extending beyond the pastime (Peter (B, 27), Mario (B, 32), Lesha (Spb, 18)) and the emergence of a special world with its unique ethos (Peter (B, 27), Yulia (Spb, 32); Lena (Spb, 25), Larisa (Spb, 28)). One important aspect which can be noticed across many interviews is that the personal and the social are very much interconnected, that personal benefits cannot be fully felt and experienced if not accompanied by social benefits. For example, respondents appreciate the feeling of accomplishment in being able to sing or play complex pieces of music (achieving “good quality”), but they like the group experience of common activity as well, and the welcoming atmosphere in the collective and friendly relationships become a predictor of


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the accomplishment experience. The balance between the personal and social rewards is associated with maximum positive feelings, and when social interaction is at the corner of the activity or working on good result without paying attention to the human aspect of serious leisure brings dissatisfaction. We also found that short-term and more “easy” benefits, typically associated with casual pastimes, play a significant role in serious leisure. They centre around self-gratification and incorporate bright positive feelings caused by the high level of performance, sense of pleasure when playing or singing with others and good mood and feeling good in general, which often transforms from momentary state into the long-term emotional condition. Self-gratification also accompanies durable benefits and makes them meaningful for the person. Relaxation and distraction from every day reality are other common benefits which are considered as non-serious. So serious leisure brings both durable and not durable benefits, with the non-serious rewards being crucial for appreciating the serious ones.

In general, we can distinguish 3 types of interplay between different components of serious leisure as they are experienced by the respondents: optimal (benefits exceed the investments and costs and bring big satisfaction, high reward), balanced (benefits compensate the investments and costs and make the activity pleasurable and moderately rewarding) and disbalanced (benefits, though existing, hardly cover the investments and costs, it causes frustration and disappointment, but involvement in serious leisure remains).

It is interesting that young people in Berlin typically adhere to the pattern of optimal involvement and carefully estimate the inputs and outputs of the activity: they monitor and regulate their participation in serious leisure, making breaks when needed for studies or quitting the activity when it becomes too complicated and intensive. The exception is with two young people pursuing self-organized activities: Mario (32) and Olga (24). Mario is investing a lot in terms of all resources and cherishes a hope of one day being able to earn a living with his music, but understands that the industry in highly competitive and therefore prefers to keep his expectations low. He justified the involvement as a way to lead a full life for himself and achieve freedom from work. Olga is investing much of her time and energy, her whole personality into her music, and she also seeks to liberate herself from constraints of nowadays world, but her strategy is the opposite. She intuitively withdraws from calculations and does not have particular anticipations, her expectations acquire the form of a dream; her strategy is to adhere to one’s authentic self and true personal experience as a source of creativity and the only possible way to do something in music which probably will be needed by other people.

On the contrary, young people in Saint Petersburg more often fall into the pattern of balanced or even disbalanced involvement. Though reflecting on their experience, they do not go into more detailed calculations and accept more significant investments and costs without questioning them much. It represents one of the coping strategies, when young people withdraw from estimating and analyzing their engagement in serious leisure in terms of what they put in and what they get from it and refuse to plan their activity ahead. For


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example, Kolya (23) expresses it this way: “I don’t plan anything for the time, while I have an opportunity, I just come and train”. Dasha (27) is consciously avoiding evaluation of her pastime and reflecting on it for the moment as she is aware that then she will face the necessity to finish with it: “I decided that for these 5 years I am not thinking about anything, I just learn and invest as much energy and interest as I can. […] If I start thinking about it, it is a direct way to realizing that I don’t have to do it”. Another strategy has to do with the anticipated benefits. These are the benefits, which young people don’t experience at the moment and even don’t hope to enjoy them in the nearest future, but have them in mind as a distant vision of future gratification. It is the case of Andrey who has started playing the violin with big plans to express his own ideas in music and achieve something important (“I have thoughts on what I would like to say in music”). But he is also aware of costs (“when you make the choice, you always pay the price, and you always know the price if this choice is conscious”) and engage in calculation and planning activities. He tries to maximize his investments to achieve the maximum possible result, but also keeps insurance options in case the plan will not work: “I am not the man, who puts all at stake, I still consider some options”, “the main thing is to build a system where you don’t lose in any case”. Similar strategy can be observed in case of Larisa, Lesha and Veronica.

So there are three patterns of involvement – optimal, balanced and disbalanced – and strategies of action characterizing calculating behavior undertaken within these patterns: careful management of investments/costs/benefits, withdrawal from calculating and planning activities and keeping expectations as a vision of future benefits along with securing alternative options while engaging in estimating and managing activities with a tendency to maximize investments.

3.3.4. Serious leisure: patterns of involvement and contribution to the biographical project

Based on three features of biographical project, we differentiate three positions of serious leisure in the biographical project: central, parity and secondary position. Central position means that serious leisure becomes the main part of the biographical project: all projecting, reflexive and calculating activities take place around serious leisure as the major life interest. It sets a direction of life activity and life meaning, becomes the source of aspirations and expectations for the future, and all other occupations and events are structured and evaluated in respect to serious leisure. Parity position emerges when serious leisure is one of the most important activities in life of the individual along with work and studies, when they occupy equal places in the biographical project, like two centres, competing, limiting and influencing one another. They both incur anticipations and play important roles in individual future plans. Secondary position is characterized by the fact that the main focus of attention, main interest is professional activity or studies: all plans and ambitions are connected with these spheres; they serve as a primary activity for defining and understanding oneself. Serious leisure is also perceived as a significant part of


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life, but become secondary in importance and in subject to the structuring influence of the main activity. Position of serious leisure in the biographical project serves as the main indicator of the contribution serious leisure is making. It is connected with the investments and costs a person is ready to tolerate in his/ her activity. It is also linked to the form of organization of serious leisure: self-organized activities tend occupy central position in the biographical project, while institutionally-organized activities have a tendency to remain on the secondary positions. It is especially relevant for Berlin, where institutional structures are more rigid, and less relevant for Saint-Petersburg, where opportunities for different formats and regimes of activities are offered.

How specifically does serious leisure contribute to the biographical project? There are several mechanisms rooted in the features and components of the biographical project. First of all, presupposing regular time spending and sufficient effort, it stimulates the reflection over one’s activities, over oneself as a participant and story of one’s participation in serious leisure. Young people begin to ask themselves, what am I doing and for what purpose? What do I intend to achieve with this and what does it mean for me? These sorts of questions lead to more reflexivity over life in general. Serious leisure normally encourages calculating and planning activities as, when engagement is systematic and investments are felt as sufficient or big, one needs to consider whether it is worth to continuing the activity and what I am going to do with it in the future. This way serious leisure incorporates the main features of the biographical project and its components and becomes a kind of smaller scale life project itself.

Serious leisure is also part of a wider range of different activities young people do and is integrated into other spheres of their lives. Therefore serious leisure, fostering the cultivation of skills of reflexivity, projection and planning, also contributes to the formation of a bigger biographical project embracing the whole personality, one’s occupations and events in life.

Serious leisure does not not only contribute to the biographical project through the cultivation of special skills enhancing its features and leading to its more intensive formation, but also influences it through its components: self, activities and life trajectory.

For some young people reflexivity over oneself becomes the major component of biographical project, their vision is focused on their self in the first place, and activities and life events become the source of exploring and building one's own personality. In some cases serious leisure has been a powerful means of seeking and getting to know oneself better and achieving a coherent vision of the self. For example, for Olga (B, 24) is a form of inner dialog resulting in creative action and helping to maintain the authenticity of the self : “It is as though I am playing with myself. […] It’s so natural, maybe, because you just write, you don’t know why, just write as though I am speaking to myself. Then I express myself in this. […] It is necessary because if I don’t do it, it's a though I'm not heard. […] If I do the music, then it’s like I’ve played with myself, and something comes out. If I don’t do it, then there is no conversation with me.


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There is just nothing, and nothing comes out”. But for Olga music production is of the first priority. In other cases when serious leisure is not of central interest, it still can contribute to the maintaining coherent self-identity. For instance, for Andreas the search for his own pathway in life has been long, with several major changes in specialties as main occupations, accompanied by doubts, unpleasurable feelings and distrust in himself. But he never stopped attending the school choir, which he started in his teenager years. In these circumstances it became the most important choir for him, as it enables to establish a stability of the self through connection to the people whom one knows for many years, who do not change and the relationships which remain stable: “Many people in [Name] feel like a family and I feel very-very close to them and know them very good”; “you don’t have to impress others, you just know the people and they know you from when you were very little and much less controlled than now”.

For other young people activities are located at the centre of their biographical projects: it means that one’s actions are the primary point of reflexivity, projection and calculations, with one’s identity and life trajectory being understood through the occupations one is engaged in. For example, for Andrey (Spb, 24) playing the violin as an action has become has central activity providing an answer to the question of the meaning of life: “What I am doing here and who I am – these two questions have started me and they will finish me, I think. […] And violin, it just gives me the answer to the one question, what I do here”. In the case of Mario (B, 32) reflexivity over his activities at work (computer programmes) led him to the conclusion that it’s “not the kind of life I want to live (“I am free spirit. I don’t want to spend life on objects. I want to spend life on subjects”) and music production serves as a major activity embodying the freedom of creativity and making life worth living: “I want to live a life without regrets, so I want to give it a try, so let’s give an attempt and see whether music becomes something more than just a passion”. Similar story happened with Astrid (B, 26): at some point of life she decided that she would like to try a pathway of a professional musician with her main instrument (oboe) and undertake a serious study of music. Through preparation for the exams and getting to know the pressures and stresses of higher music education she has formed a better vision of occupation which will suit her and has developed a better understanding of what she wants to do: “But I think it really helped me to clear the point that studying at the university it’s not what I really want. I want to get better in playing the instrument, but I want to have fun still. I don’t want only to be criticized all the time and to get into the competition with other students and it’s so hard, I can’t see the good thing there”. In both cases serious leisure helped to determine priorities in life and clarify life goals.

The biographical project also incorporates a vision of one's life trajectory and builds around important life events in the life of the individual. Our data shows that focus on life trajectory is difficult to discern from focus on activities or one’s self. Besides, the interview is composed also of the questions about one’s biography, therefore the concentration on certain life events might be a response to the interview structure. But still we observe that young people who have moved to Berlin from other countries tend to refer to the particular stages


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of their life more often and perceive change in life circumstances as more meaningful. For example, for Maria (31) her arrival in Germany was of major consequence and the point inspiring reflexivity about the self and activities she does. Other significant stages in her life include service in the army, which she did after school, and studies at the university in Jerusalem, where she did a degree in music. She has been singing in the choirs since 2nd year at school, she changed many choirs, she changed several places of living, but she always continues to sing, even after some breaks when serving in the army or upon arrival in Berlin. Serious leisure has become an activity which goes embracing all stages in her life, connecting and binding different pieces together: “I was singing all my life”; “I think I will always stay in the choir”.

Thus serious leisure can contribute to the biographical project through its three components – self, activities and life trajectory – and do it in various ways. It can contribute to the coherence of the self and have a stabilizing role for self-identity in changing circumstances. It can also lead to the better understanding of one self and help to determine what are the most important things in life for the person, taking part in setting priorities and establishing life goals. It may assist in connecting different parts of life of the person into the whole vision.

We have also revealed that in some cases young people tend to avoid planning and, though being aware of the investments and costs, consciously refuse to analyze their involvement in serious leisure in terms what they finally get from the activity. They prefer to leave the question, of whether rewards they get from their pastime compensate the time and efforts they spend, open and postpone the answer to it, which enables them to stay involved. In some cases it is an expression of a general attitude to managing one’s life when the need to plan is viewed as useless in the fast changing circumstances: “I don’t plan anything, everything will be arranged somehow. To plan is stupid, because something is happening all the time” (Kolya, Spb, 23). The reasons for certain events are perceived as lying outside of the individual influence (“I don’t know, it has happened so somehow”) and therefore it is considered more appropriate to orient on external circumstances in undertaking an action (“we’ll see what will be the situation”). In other cases reluctance to plan is only expressed in regards to serious leisure (“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about this, I do not plan so further on” – Masha, Spb, 30), where perspectives are unclear (“maybe, I will find some application for my skills, but I don’t see it now”) and the aim for the future is formulated in general terms (“to become a Master, to get hold of bel canto”), but there is a vision of the future for other occupations (research in biology). There might be another situation, for example, in case of Yulia (Spb, 27): being aware of big inputs and costs of serious leisure, she tries to withdraw from questions about what she gets from it and this way maintains her involvement. But keeping her pastime in its existing form starts to interfere with her career plans and confuses the vision of future plans in a professional occupation, which puts her to pressures of complicated choice: “I could go and live in Moscow and work in that office, but I don’t do it only because music school is here. Choice is happening constantly, and in favor of this hobby”. So avoidance of planning and calculation concerning serious leisure may result


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from a general attitude to decision-making or a strategy applied specifically to this sphere of life, as a way to cope with and tolerate sufficient inputs into the activity when benefits are few, but uncertainties of future prospects remain in the background.

As a result, while reflexivity remains, the planning and projecting parts of the biographical project become impaired, only in relation to serious leisure itself or extending to other life areas as well. Therefore it leads to an incomplete biographical project and young people might experience difficulties in attaining the coherent and satisfactory vision of themselves and their lives.

4. Conclusion

The thesis is devoted to the question of determining the position and role of serious leisure in the biographical project.

For this we have considered the phenomenon of leisure and offered an integrated concept of leisure consisting of three dimensions – time, activity, experience – and characterized by three features: an area beyond the occupations performed to satisfy the basic needs of survival, physical existence and provision of the means of subsistence (freedom from the basic requirements of existence), freedom from basic necessities and mundane concerns (disinterestedness), realization of higher non-material needs, fulfilled for its own sake (intrinsic motivation).

Then we analyzed serious leisure as a particular type of leisure activity and suggested a modification of the initial theoretical framework. We offered a model of serious leisure, with investments/ contributions, negative consequences/ outcomes (costs) and positive consequences (benefits/ rewards) as its main components. Investments incorporate tangible and intangible inputs, the first one including material and measurable things (time, money, special equipment, instruments, uniform etc), the second one – non-material and difficult to measure contributions (physical, emotional, intellectual), with the notion of significant effort going into the intangible inputs. Costs are divided into physical, psychological and social, while benefits encompass wide range of personal and limited number of social rewards. Other features of serious leisure – career, identification and unique ethos – also represent specific outcomes of the activity leisure and are included in the list of benefits. Perseverance is substituted for a wider concept of commitment, comprised of behavioral, affective and normative component and connected simultaneously to investments, costs and benefits.

We proceeded by paying attention to the theories of individualization, late and liquid modernity to reveal the current structural processes impacting individual biographies. We identified that, in the condition of individualization, people experience multiple pressures originating in institutional settings and their regulations: institutional structure opens up a variety of options and opportunities before them, but these possibilities for choice are loaded with


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unavoidable difficulties. First, the situation of choice itself is not voluntary and individuals face “compulsive and obligatory self-determination”. Second, available opportunities are characterized by diversity and complexity, which one is barely able to evaluate; and institutions do not provide any support or guidelines helping to orient in the world of options. Thus individuals encounter uncertainty and need to create their own frames of reference to make sense of the social reality around them. Third, the responsibility for failure and negative consequences of choice is also increasingly placed on the individual’s shoulders, but the opportunities to control the institutional patterns and regulations, on which personal biographies depend, are minimal. There is an acute discrepancy between the burden of responsibility over one’s own life and subjection to the structural influences it is tied to, leading to the sense of lack of control and powerlessness in the face of life circumstances. This imbalance is also intensified by unpredictability, instability and risks generated by institutional functioning.

The biographical project emerges as a response and individual strategy to deal with the pressures of individualization as a structural condition of late modernity. It serves as a means to make sense of the complexity and diversity of choices, to reduce the uncertainty in decision-making and cope with the unpredictability and instability of the surrounding life situations as well as gain a sense of power over one’s own life.

We considered the important aspects of the biographical project and distinguished its three main features: projection or orientation into the future, reflexivity (reflective and interpreting activities) and planning (calculation and evaluation activities). We also identified its several components: life trajectory and events constituting it, activities the person is engaged in and the image of the self, interconnected and constructing each other. Finally, we defined biographical project as a narrative construction, a coherent, but continuously revised vision of the self, one’s activities and one’s own life trajectory, characterized by orientation towards the future, reflexivity and planning.

Serious leisure, due to its distinctive features, plays a significant role in coping with the consequences of individualization and creating the biographical project. We offered several assumptions about how serious leisure may contribute to the biographical project, viewing it from different angles: institutional incorporation, place in the life of individual, effects on the components of a biographical project and connection of costs and benefits of serious leisure as an activity which stimulates planning to the wider calculation practices within a biographical project.

We analyzed the empirical data received from 27 interviews with young people from Berlin and Saint-Petersburg and explored our assumptions. Based on three features of biographical project, we differentiated three positions of serious leisure in the biographical project: central, parity and secondary position in relation to how much they constitute the major life interest in the life of the individual and focus of all projecting, reflexive and calculating activities, becomes the source of aspirations and expectations for the future and


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structuring other occupations and events. Position of serious leisure in the biographical project serves as the main indicator of the contribution serious leisure is making. It is connected with the investments and costs that a person is ready to tolerate in his/ her activity. It is also linked to the form of organization of serious leisure: self-organized activities tend to occupy a central position in the biographical project, while institutionally-organized activities have a tendency to remain in secondary positions.

We also revealed that serious leisure contributes to the biographical project through its three components – self, activities and life trajectory – and does it in various ways. It contributes to the coherence of the self and has a stabilizing role for self-identity in changing circumstances. It leads to the better understanding of one self and helps to determine priorities and establishing life goals. It assists in connecting different parts of life of the person into the whole vision. But, planning and projecting this part of the biographical project can become impaired, due to the refusal of young people to engage in estimating and calculating activities, both in relation to serious leisure itself or extending to other life spheres. This may lead to an incomplete biographical project and difficulties in attaining the coherent and satisfactory vision of themselves and their lives.


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Appendix 1.

Interview Guide

Introduction:

I am a Master’s student and conduct a sociological research on the topic of serious leisure. It is a special kind of free time activity, which is done on a regular basis and requires special skills from the participant. I’m interested to find out what activities young people do as serious leisure, how they come to this and why stay engaged, what meaning serious leisure has for them and how it is connected with other spheres of their life. I am interested in speaking to you as you seem to be involved in such kind of activity and I would like to know more about your experience. I will ask different questions and will appreciate if you could reply in detail. If the question is unclear or you don’t want to answer, please, let me know. I would like to record the conservation if you do not mind. The interview is anonymous and the information will be used in generalized way.

Topic 1.

Socio-demographic characteristics and status of the respondent.

Main activity (professional activity, studies)

Education: main and latest qualification.

Age. Place of origin. Marital status and family.

Parents (professional activity, education, place of living).

Topic 2.

Serious leisure practice

Could you please tell me about your hobby or favorite pastime?

How often, for how long, where do you practice it?

How much time and effort do you spend on your hobby? Does it demand any financial expenses?

What particular skills and knowledge do you need for this activity? Do you need any special equipment or materials?

Could you please describe your usual class/ session/ day devoted to hobby?

What people are you connected with through your hobby?

Are you involved in other activities connected with your favorite pastime? Do you have other hobbies?


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Topic 3.

Story of involvement in serious leisure and future plans

Could you please remember and tell in more detail, when and how did you happen to get involved in this activity?

Why have you become interested? What was the main reason and stimulus for you to start? What were your life circumstances at that time? Why have you chosen to start doing specifically this activity?

Have you been engaged in the same hobby or similar activities in the past? Could you please tell about your childhood, school years and hobbies you did then?

Could you please compare your experience of the hobby in the first few months with the current situation? What has changed?

Could you please tell about any breaks in the activity?

When and for how long? What caused the breaks and what brought you back to the hobby? What has changed?

What plans do you have regarding your hobby?

For how long do you intend to pursue it? Do you have any goals and results you’d like to achieve in your favorite pastime? What are your plans for the next year? What will happen after you finish your studies or move away?

Topic 4.

Subjective experience of serious leisure.

Meaning and significance of serious leisure

What does your hobby mean for you?

How important is it for you? What does it bring into your life?

What keeps you engaged in this pastime and eager to continue it?

Attitude to serious leisure

How would you characterize your overall hobby experience?

How satisfactory has been your involvement?

What emotions and feelings do you associate with it?

Have you experienced any difficulties or problems in your favorite pastime?

Values

What are the most important things in life for you?

What do you think is valuable? What are you striving for? What life would you like to lead?


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Topic 5.

Serious leisure among other activities

How is your hobby connected to other spheres of your life? What place does it occupy?

How is it related to your work/ studies/ family life/ friends? How do you manage to find time for different activities? Do you encounter tensions or pressures in combining them?

What has changed in your life since you started to practice it?

Does it help to solve any problems or overcome difficulties in other areas of life?

Concluding remarks:

Thank you for finding time to meet me and telling me about your hobby and yourself. Your contribution is very valuable for my research.


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Appendix 2

Interview transcript

Astrid (Berlin, 26, oboe/ choir, 21/03/2014)

[Introductory talk]

Ok, I can give you an answer (laughing). […] In my case I’d say it’s my second life. When I’m playing in the orchestra with my oboe I have another role, I’m another person than in work or another circumstances. You have a different surrounding […] and you, together with the group, you contribute to make a good music, to make a good sound. It’s different from I’m doing there from what I do, what I did in my studies or what I do in my work now. For example, if you see hierarchies which exist when you do an office job, and you have your boss, you have your colleagues, and you are in a fixed structure. And there, in the orchestra, it’s another [pause] order [ordering?], and you are another person.

In what way another person? In what way another?

Sometimes you have a balance to your normal life. For example, if something doesn’t take good ways or if you are now feeling good with the job [disappointment, concerns…], if there is something you’re concerned about in your life, then in the concert or in the choir it’s a different environment, and you can forget the rest for a few hours and take another character and be another person and see well, I didn’t succeeded doing this […], but in the afternoon or at night, with the music it’s different, and I’m able to do something special. But it can be the reverse also (laughing) when, for example, I do much bicycle tours with my boyfriend and I’m feeling very sportive at the moment, and I come to the orchestra, didn’t practice, nothing works, so it may be the opposite also.

You mentioned different kind of order, what kind of order is it?

It’s also an aspect of self-confidence you mentioned I think, because for example, now I’m doing one of my first jobs, I have already worked in other firms, but at the moment I’m not quite satisfied, and I really don’t like that you always, that you’re the beginner always, many times they don’t believe in you or in your abilities or they just don’t give you a chance to demonstrate them. That’s really different when I’m in the orchestra. I have many years of experience. That’s also special because I am playing the wind instrument, and winds are always are only 2 or perhaps 3 or 4 in one group so you often have to play alone or a solo. Well, if you don’t play a solo you will be heard anyway. The melody instruments are important. The oboe always gives the tone [before the concert all instruments should equal their frequency with the oboe]. For me


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it’s really, I really like it to play together, because my orchestra here in Berlin is really good. Always after the rehearsal (I: Probe?), yes, after the Probe we have our Stammtisch, yes, together we go to a bar and have beer and keep talking, not only about the rehearsal, but also abut music, about normal subject. Well, I’m already there for 3 years, some of the members of the orchestra, I already know them very well and we see each other on other occasions, not only rehearsals. It’s really good as it also has an impact on the rehearsals I think because (I: What do you mean specifically? What impact?)… Well, in music leisure it’s different than in sports leisure. [sport – teams, more talkative leisure, you have to communicate a lot – not as in “classical serious rehearsal”]. I already experienced several orchestras in my study, and sometimes it’s difficult to get contact to other orchestra members and to get to know the persons with whom you’re playing. Sometimes you play and just go at home afterwards and you didn’t talk more than “Hello!”, “Good Bye!”, perhaps “How are you?” But it’s already much. (laughing) Sometimes it’s like that and I’m really happy that in this orchestra […] it’s different and I really appreciate it. And it makes the difference because we are all very.. we are wanting to play together, we are not there for any force (laughing).

In this orchestra I’m experiencing it until now, o, how complicated! It’s really good experience there because of this, you get to know the people, other students, and they are interested. [party – invitation via orchestra mail + at least 10 people come]

[whole orchestra – 60-70 persons, you need that for a complete orchestra – many strings. Only wind instruments, we are 20 perhaps, every semester the group changes a bit, but there are also members who are there for several years like me. Important that there is a group of persons who know each other + you need to be open to integrate]

How often do you rehearse? How many hours and time do you spend on it per week?

The orchestra rehearsal is once a week. [during study time, in breaks no rehearsals]. I’ve been a bit lazy these weeks (in the break period) because I didn’t practice the oboe. Singing, I only practice it for the pieces we are singing in the choir [I: O, there is also singing?], but it’s not as elaborated as my playing the oboe. Because now I’m playing the oboe since many years, 15 years now. But I’m singing like 3 years, but only in the choir of the university, before I never sang. I just wanted to do it.

Why? How did you came to the idea? How the intention formed?

I think if you can sing you can do everything. (I: I’m a powerful person. What do you mean?) If you can sing a tone, do a sound with your voice and your body, then you have it inside. And always when you have an instrument, there is a danger you’re not enough in contact with the instrument and you just have a machine.. [it doesn’t work like pushing the bottons – you also have to sing while


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playing]. You have to sing also when you sing an instrument. [can lose your skills when you don’t practice or have a teacher – with an instrument]. I think when you’re singing and using your voice, you are aware of it directly, if it’s getting worse. And with an instrument, that happened to me, you are not aware of it so much as it’s not inside your body, you don’t feel it like that. And after a while you see that o, I’m not good at playing it any more. Perhaps you also have to yea pay attention, listen to yourself. I think singers, they really need to listen to themselves, correct themselves, always, and with an instrument you can kind of forget to do it.

[Pause – tea]

Why were you interested in singing? Why have you started it?

I think it helps me with playing the oboe. It’s a bit of a (really?) support for that because really when I can sing anything, I can play it with the oboe also. With a wind instrument you can play some difficult pieces, that you can’t sing, so you always have a bit of difference. The music is very fast, many notes and that I would never be able to sing, […] and I have to imagine it and hear it in my mind, it’s not possible always. But sometimes it’s transferrable. [difficult to explain, example -] I often have to play together [with a flute, accordion], even the same notes, and you have to get the right tone. You have to know it before you play how it will sound. When you are singing, you are practicing it always. [with instruments it’s not always so – depends on director] You are not forced to do it, but it’s really important to do a good sound, so I’m learning much from singing what I can use when I play.

Do you also feel some opposite effect on singing from your playing?

Yes, I think I wouldn’t have been able to begin singing without any teacher, preparation, nothing if I haven’t played wind instrument before. [when you begin you have to learn, control your breath, to use it to sing, “all these techniques I already learnt – with wind instrument you know how to use your breath, it’s the same technique” – can breathe deeply and take long breaths] When I was a little child I loved singing, but my older brothers, they told me that I should shut up (laughing) [don’t know when exactly it was, but they never liked her singing]

[pause with a washing machine and tea. Talking about the tea and cake]

Singing – also once a week?

Yes, that’s a bit much. […] We have rehearsals on Tuesday for the choir and Wednesday for the orchestra. It’s long days. [go out at 07.30-08.00 and come back at 23.00]. It’s a long day and I’m tired, but I like it also. [break – can do more sports, don’t do much music now]


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What kind of work are you doing?

I am actually working as foreign language assistant in , but in reality it’s a secretary job and I’m a but bored by it. [ministry of foreign affairs, like an internship – learns a lot about inner structure – experience to know whether I’d like to work there on another position] I’m a bit afraid that it’s not my wish. It’s ok for me for the time, but I’m looking for another job. But I think it’s difficult, because, I don’t know what your studies exactly are [What have you studied? Master’s – Latin America Studies, a bit of all, about region, before – Spanish philology, literature and cultural studies, so “you can do anything, but (I: nothing specific) – problem to find a job]

First it’s difficult to get to know what you want, I’m not so sure, I have no determined vision at any moment what I want to be. The other thing is that I applied for many interesting jobs and positions, but it’s never enough to have studied for a long time and done some internships, it’s never enough practical experience […]. So it’s a bit frustrating that you’re applying for job where you think you have the qualities, but the other side don’t see like that or there are other applicants who already worked for 5 years and you have no chance. So it’s really difficult. Both – my own wishes and also the possibilities.

When have you graduated?

[in 2013, Jan 2103. Master’s thesis – 2012. in current position – since Nov13. before – another part-time, now full-time, before – nongovernmental organization, liked it, but they were cutting jobs and Latin America it’s not a region where expansion takes place. Had “only short contract and only part-time”, “it was really insecure”, “I could have stayed, but it was so insure, they never could tell me whether it’s going the next month or not, and so I said I had to find another job because it can end every moment, and I’m not the master of the situation” “I can’t decide”]

It was so, es hat mich genervt [topics are interesting, but they can never give you an answer so „you can’t plan“] [I: and current job?] It’s totally secure, I can stay there all my life, but I don’t want to. It’s the only really good thing, but it’s not so good. I’m too young to say I’m going to stay there for another 30 years. (laughing)

What don’t you like?

It’s not a job where you need academic education. I applied for it because it sounded interesting because of foreign languages, which I actually don’t use here in Germany and it sounded interesting to get to contact and to get to know the ministry. And you’re paid for it. [internship – you’re not paid and short term, it’s ok for some time] After my Master’s I decided that I don’t want internships which are not paid […] I’m not a student any more and I want to work, and I want money for my work. So I’m doing not a qualified work [will be fine for a few


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months or for a year, but then might be good in the resume for future applications. Maybe, not very good as might be considered as low-skilled job, not going to stay long]

How do you manage to combine singing and orchestra? What kind of stress do you experience?

One point is that I’m very tired […], especially on Thursdays, after Tuesdays and Wednesdays I am already feeling it’s a weekend and it’s good, it’s a bit of relief, the rehearsals are over and long days are over. But many times I experience it on Tuesday or Wednesday night, that it’s worth the effort, it’s good experience. Then second point is like you said that it’s a bit of stress in your free time. You need to be careful because in my free time I also need to relax, to sleep and get new […] energy. So it’s a bit difficult for me to practice at home for the rehearsals, above all to practice the oboe, because singing is in the group and you can adapt to your group and […] normally we are learning all together and you can do it when you go there once a week and before the concerts you concentrate more. In the orchestra it’s normally more difficult, you should practice some time at home and that’s a bit difficult for me because when I come back from work the other three days, normally I’m tired and I can’t get myself to get out the instrument and play for another half an hour or so. So I really do it once a week perhaps on weekend or I don’t. And that’s a bit a problem as I should do a bit of practice […]. That’s a bit of stress of what I’m doing to myself because I’m saying to me “O, why you should?” Yes, it’s a bit of stress as it’s your free time and you should enjoy it and you shouldn’t reproach yourself why haven’t you practiced. (I: It seems you feel guilty when doing something for yourself) Yes, the guilty is there always (laughing). When I’m at the rehearsal, I always think I should have practiced more. Yes, it works when you practice at home it’s really better, but I can’t do it often so I am a bit frustrated – not because I think I have only 35 hour job and it’s a bit difficult to do your hobby, with more effort because you have to relax also and spend time with friends.

You are still going to continue to attend both the choir and orchestra?

Yes, I was thinking whether I should leave choir perhaps, but sure this semester I can’t leave it. [little trip to Prague is planned “I had to organize it too and hope we’ll be able to do it, it would be great” + good pieces. In orchestra pieces] I think I’ll stay in Berlin till summer, that’s sure, until the middle of July and there we’ll have our concerts [end of June, beginning of July]. In orchestra it’s a bit different. I can leave it but it’s difficult to get two oboes there, we always have a bit problem to find one. So it would be good if I stay at least so long as nobody comes. [difficult to find another person, who is stable] I’m there the stable one.


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Do you consider giving up one or the other?

I think it will be more relaxed for my life and I would have a bit more time. I really prefer the orchestra, that’s quite clear. I like the choir, but orchestra is more my thing and this instrument is more important for me. But the choir and the singing as I’ve told you is helping me and I like to do it too. But sometimes I think it would be a bit easier and I could concentrate more on other things if I had only one fixed rehearsal per week.

[when your Tuesdays and Wednesdays are occupied, you have to say to friends – no, I can’t, and you’re not flexible. + plus time for applications for other jobs]

So you are stay for the moment and consider leaving something from the next semester?

[Yes, you can stay in the choir and orchestra, it’s ok to stay as it’s open, and I feel a bit of a student “I’m allowed to be there”, “if there come two new students who play the oboe, then I will leave my place”] When I am there, I have my place and I can say I’m staying and they take only one more. But if I see there are two, I say it’s ok, I’ve already been there some years and you should have the chance. […] Another point is that when I find a new job it’s perhaps not in Berlin so I have to leave anyway, it can happen. Until summer – not, but afterwards I’m not sure. But then I think when I go to another city, I will also look for to find an orchestra. [adults or younger study group which is better as long a I can afford it]

So you are going to continue?

Yes, that’s my plan […]. I hope it’s always possible but I’m not sure. [also private classes with teacher – once in 2 weeks or a month] I’d like to continue as I think if you don’t practice on your own and just play in a group you’re getting worse every time, so you have to do a bit of an effort. So I also could imagine that perhaps when I’m in another city I could also play in a smaller group [not necessarily a big orchestra]. Once I played in a little group, tango group, it was an Argentine teacher [he arranged pieces, we had accordion, viola] it was an interesting group. It was also at the university, but it was when I studied in another city, in Bremen, it was my Bachelor, and there I played for about one year, not so long.

What was different in tango group? What have you liked?

In the tango group I liked the tango, I am a fan of the music. [big orchestra – different, you have to count tacts + pauses] In a smaller group you nearly always play and you are more concentrated and everybody is more important. But it was a bit too chaotic there. [teacher – plays piano beautifully, “he was a


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bit of a genius, but not good pedagogic man”, “he was an artist for himself, but the group got worse each time”. It didn’t work]

But what have you enjoyed?

I got acquainted with a friend of mine, we are still in contact. [+ got to know tango repertoire] I would like to do it once more with another group, but prefer it to be not ambitious, but with a bit more concentration. It was too relaxed: we came there, we played anything and we never decided nothing what we would play and where we would play and so on. And when it came to a concert, and two weeks before we started to think about the programme, it was a total chaos and it was a bit frustrating. [coming to the concert – how should we survive this?] [My comments] If you are doing a concert, you can enjoy it when you’re prepared. Some people don’t like concerts but when you’re playing in the orchestra, it’s for doing concerts.

What do you think about concerts? How important they are for you?

I think if you are doing music it’s difficult to be enough only to rehearse and don’t have an objective. I think it’s always easier to work on the music and to get to know it better, […] it’s always good to have an objective and to know, yea, in the few months we do a concert. It’s not such an important thing, there will come our family, our friends and perhaps there will be hundred people, but not thousands or I don’t know. So it’s not such a great big thing. The objective of one semester is concert, and until this specific data we would like to have good quality […]. It’s always good to work on the music as if you just get together and play and don’t know where you go, it’s not satisfying, you just have no motivation, so I think you need this.

Do you like the concert experience itself?

[Different concert experience, it’s not always pleasant. Tango ensemble – always catastrophe, nobody was listening or don’t understand much “it’s just some instruments playing” – “no good feeling when we should have practiced and prepared, then it’s really bad to have such a concert” – it’s not satisfying. Orchestra in Uruguay, South America, on exchange programme in school (interest in South America – origin). Reaction of the audience is generally good, but it doesn’t make much difference, it’s not satisfying when you know that the concert went bad. But also had many good concerts – good quality as on the rehearsals or even better.] Solos are also exciting for other people, and it’s nice in my orchestra that some people come and congratulate. […] So sometimes I also receive congratulations [oboe usually has a solo along with other instruments], so it’s a good experience. For me it’s satisfying when I get aware, when I see that the concert is what we practiced, it’s not better or worse. It’s important when you rehearse every week and the concert is not good. [I: concert as a result?] Yes, you understand it right, I have to be satisfied with


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myself, obviously it’s also important that the audience is satisfied. [parents and friends – never tell you it was bad, always say “how nice”]

You have good relations in orchestra. With the singing – the same situation?

It’s different situation, because in the orchestra I am playing melody instrument and sitting next to the flutes and oboe and the others, so I have like my little group. There is always a separation between strings and winds, but I also have some friends in strings (laughs), but winds – I know them all [strings – new faces, barely knows them]. In the choir it’s different, because it’s a big choir [200 – “so big”, another smaller choir – 30 persons – high quality, but you have to sing really good for it] But as I’ve told you I’m singing like this, without doing much for it. [in big choir – different. sings not solo, but in the group of altos. “That’s my group”, women and men rehearse separately (one part), but then together (second part), doesn’t know many men and sopranos. Sits with altos + get to know some people during the break]. Since one year I motivated two friends of mine get into the choir too, because they are from Kenya and they need more contact, (I: to integrate?), yes, to integrate and to get to know more young people, so I though it would be a good idea. [with these 2 girls – often sits together and meets them on other occasions.] I like that they are there, I also talk to other people, but it’s not so close as in the orchestra.

To clarify – when have you started both?

[In 2010 began her studies and it was the point to starting playing and singing] I directly joined the orchestra and after half year I joined the choir. In the choir I stayed for 2 semesters, then I stopped for one, so it was the orchestra always, and choir with some interruptions.

Intention of starting singing? Why?

It was in intention to try whether I can do it. Now I can say, I can do it and it’s really possible. But in the beginning I was really bad, they took, but probably because I was playing oboe in the orchestra (laughs). They can’t take everybody, because every semester there come like hundreds of new students, few people are leaving, but not hundred […], normally I wouldn’t have entered with my quality of singing, but now it’s better, it has become better. I wanted to try it first as I never did it in my life. And the second point was I was a bit having the idea, I wanted to get to know if I perhaps would be able to study music. It was also an idea because when you’re doing your hobby so intensively and you enjoy it [many people consider to do it professionally] and I was thinking I would like to do it, but it’s so difficult in Germany and in other countries too, and you have to prepare so much and study so much only to begin studying. The barrier is very high to enter, but that was a bit of an idea. I know how to play a piano and the missing thing was how to sing. [in Germany you have to play piano a


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bit and to be able to sing. Piano lessons in school] But I just can’t study all my life, only I would have like to do it, so I once tried to do entrance exams, well, I failed. (I: How long ago was it?) I did it one year ago, and it was a good experience because finally I knew how these exams are going on and what amount of thing you need to do for that, how intensive it, and I also got to know that professional doing of music is perhaps not the right thing for me, because it’s really hard, and I think psychologically, and there is always a competition, and when you study it, the teachers and the audience, they only see your deficits, all the time, it’s so negative (I: Discouraging?) Yes, discouraging! But also negative, you only see the negative point in musician, and this is not what I want to do. If I want to study it, then I would spend more time on it, and I really would like to be really good, better than now, but it’s also not my objective to get criticized everyday for everything. Yes, you have to be really string personality to live with all the critiques, and I think it’s not good for me.

(I: Was the idea to study music on the first year of your MA degree?) I thought I should try this as long as I can still try it. I had an idea to study after my Master’s degree also, yea, music, but more for myself. Then I realized that it’s really a big thing, you need six years more, where I get the money from it’s another question, I have to work and study part-time, and I’m already old for beginning to study music, and it’s a bit impossible, mission impossible.

Now would you like to give it up entirely or try another format of education?

Yea, I was rethinking my motivation for that. I think that now after I’ve tried these exams and that I’ve really thought about it (I: in depth?) in depth and concrete I got aware that it’s not what I wanted. I wanted to get better in music and I wanted to spend more time on that and I wanted to enjoy it. It’s still the most important thing for me that I have fun with it, that I always like it and don’t be frustrated. And I think when I begin it in university, it’s all about competition, it’s all about critique, to be always the best and when I see persons who finished these studies and who have no chance for any job and who are so, who have worked so hard for years, always on themselves, all the time on themselves, to play better. [illnesses of musician] So I decided I don’t want that and I decided that I’m doing good taking personal classes, private classes [otherwise – get worse, experienced it in studies when needed to do other things] After school I thought about studying music but then I thought it should be a hobby and I should enjoy it. Now I confirmed it but later. (I: So you wanted to keep it as a hobby from school?) Yes, it was in school. Now I was a bit insecure whether I’ve done right and whether to study it because I think with the oboe I could have done it at any moment perhaps, but now as everyone says “O, you are…”, well, it was when I was 25, that’s too old, and they discouraged me [professors, normally applicants 18-19 years. You must play like professional in your age. “You have to be very-very good if you want to enter at this age, so it’s nearly impossible, and it’s stupid”. Singing is even worse – biological explanation, evolution of your voice can’t be influenced anymore.


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With instrument – “the teachers can’t influence you any more, your mind if fixed, you are not open to influence, you made up your own style”] [one professor, Brazilian guy, helped [Name] and gave classes and didn’t want to have money. Told her that with her age it’s final point, you have no chance, “but I did it for myself. I played as I could, and it was not enough for them. But he said in my case age would not be a problem as I am open enough to learn and to take advice”] But I think it really helped me to clear the point that studying at the university it’s not what I really want. I want to get better in playing the instrument, but I want to have fun still. I don’t want only to be criticized all the time and to get into the competition with other students and it’s so hard, I can’t see the good thing there.

But how would you like to proceed with your playing? After you draw these conclusions, would you like to do it like that or to study it in some other format?

I would like to spend more time on that, but it’s also a bit, I have to do an effort also. [If I would have chosen to study at the university – you need to study every day, I can’t do it]. I would say I would like to leave it as it is now as I love my orchestra and I like the concert each half a year, you can concentrate on 2-3 pieces of music and it’s great because you get to know them in depth, and you can enjoy the music. The other thing is that since then I’m taking classes and it’s good to see you can improve in some area, technique..

Could you tell me about experience in other orchestras?

15 years ago I began to play the oboe and the piano, in my hometown and in music school [parents took her and 2 brothers to music school to try instruments. Little brother started to play piano, the teacher was very nice, so she also began to play. I enjoyed it very much. I had to instruments which is a bit much, but they are really 2 different instruments. The piano is for yourself, and for the oboe you need a group. After 3 years of oboe in private classes she entered the orchestra of wind instruments in music school, only students from this school, rehearsal once a week, sometimes played together with string orchestra. Stayed in this orchestra for 5 years till she finished school. Then BA in Bremen, then year of work before Master’s. “In these 4 years I experienced a few groups, because when I got into the university, I directly started to play in university orchestra, symphonic orchestra, but I only stayed there for one semester, because I didn’t like it”. Director gave degrees for playing, “it was the worse experience, I saw how she treated others, I didn’t agree with her at all in this. It’s a hobby and you’re playing it for leisure and you could get university points for that” orchestra – three points, you don’t need a degree for this. Degrees – absurd. + old persons in the orchestra, they all had relation to the university, you couldn’t not talk at rehearsals, they were regulating the communication, no good atmosphere. Then 1 year break in playing. Year in Spain in Erasmus programme – without instrument. Then experience with


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tango ensemble 1,5-2 years. Chaotic, the leader didn’t force us to practice or to play good, didn’t care and pay attention to other people, “didn’t mind how we were playing”, “it was fun, but not good for my playing” + met nice people and it was nice for a time. Then symphonic wind orchestra (still Bremen) – interesting, the leader was a professional musician, “was ambitious with us”, orchestra of adults, “orchestra of working people” – first time she played in such orchestra, before – only school or young student orchestra – played in this orchestra while I was working, was younger than others (generation of my parents), - “I was the only oboe, it happened many time to me, I am used to it, but it’s nice when you have partner” I: Why? “Because you can exchange the experience with instrument, you can discuss how the other one or you are doing the mouth piece [special tool for playing] – you have to build it up with your handcraft, it’s really special” [special skills are necessary] “it’s also such a difficulty because it’s always like an obstacle to play because you need a good tube, and you can discuss it with oboe partner”. Then I changed to Berlin and started here] [important part – one year in 11th class I went to Uruguay, with exchange organization, was living with the family. Went to a concert of national young orchestra in Uruguay. Guest-mom talked to the director that I also play and got me there. Director agreed and told to come. I was the first foreigner in this orchestra. Now they have foreigners who come there, mostly Germans, playing with them.] When I was in Uruguay, I played much. That was I think the most intense time of playing until now, and when I practiced for the exam. I played in very young orchestra, it was a bit of a problem, I was 16 and they were 30, they were always laughing about my language, it was difficult to make friends and friendship because the age difference was big […]. But the playing in that group was very good because they played for all their life [] and I learnt much and we did a trip to Chile and it was very nice. We did many concerts, and for them music is the most important thing in their lives, and for a year for it me it was a bit like that, it was also very important for me, it was a special experience.

[then 4 years ago visited Uruguay, then was in Uruguay for 3 weeks recently – attended a wedding of a girl from the orchestra. This girl visited Berlin one year ago. Many other orchestra members are professional musicians. One of them – professor in France, 23 y.o., gives classes, makes many things, he is so great. The other one played for me, and I was really impressed. In Uruguay you can earn with classical music, they can live from their art, I loved to see it, but I can’t imagine it for me “because in Germany I don’t see it’s possible to earn much money, enough money to survive with music, it’s overcrowded with professional musicians” in Uruguay it’s a new thing, people, in Germany – it’s been for a long time, it’s so specialized, have many universities and professionals, many orchestras – in Uruguay just two professional big orchestra. “Here if you want to have a fixed job in a professional orchestra, you can compete with hundreds of people, and they are all so good, but they will only take one. And it’s only a question of perhaps luck and much talent and SO much practice, and I don’t see it (I: as a possible option?) – no.


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Has this recent trip influenced your plans regarding music?

[Yes, in a way that I want to support them. They are planning a trip to Europe, concert in Philharmonic.] For professional career it’s perhaps a option and I should try it one day that I could work in the area of cultural exchange and also cultural events like concerts and organizing. I would like to be at the meeting point – music, Latin America and culture (I: would you like to find a combination for your interests?) That’s a bit my plan. [my comments – background in all areas] I will start because now we recently planned the trip for our choir and I hope it will happen [not everybody can come, need ], the second thing will be the organization of my Uruguayan orchestra to come here and I could help a bit with accommodation and promotion of the concert and so on. I love to do that, I really want to have them. Well, first I must see is it really also fun to do it but I think there is a sense and good work and if I could do kind of this in my work also, this would be good. So I have an objective for my work too. And what I realized last year and now that I think I won’t be a professional musician, but I’m an ambitious musician and I want to play good. I’m not satisfied and I am getting worse all the time […]. I think when I stay in contact with musicians; it doesn’t matter whether I studying it or study it for myself, if I have a good teacher in my private classes, it doesn’t matter from the university or not, it’s good that I make it going.

In the arts it must not be formalized, you need a motivation, it’s not that you have to go to classes to university, well, you have to study theory and technique, but most important is that you have a teacher who motivates you and who give you a bit of (I: support?) yes, support and encouragement. I have an objective with an orchestra also. It makes sense to study and play and you want to contribute to the group. Now I’m concentrating, since one year, only on the oboe. Before it was different and I played more piano, but now I don’t play it any more as it was because of my teacher [no classes from school time, “difficult to keep it alive”, it’s only for yourself. Once in a month – dissappoinement, I don’t play any more now]

Why do you concentrate on oboe? Why do you make it the main instrument?

When I began, it was my first instrument, then it was always at the same level as piano. And piano lessons were better so I liked to play it more. [first orchestra – not so good, “it was difficult to get integrate in the group”, I was the youngest] Now it’s a different situation, my orchestra group is really nice and that’s more important. I think it has to do with that. [I: your group is important?] Yes, it’s motivating me. And I thought about it in depth that if I want too study music I only trained with the oboe because I have to know one instrument very good. It doesn’t help that I play good the piano because it’s only about one instrument. [clear that one had to choose. piano – good, like playing it and practice, but much worse to succeed] Oboe is specific instrument and you can have a chance to enter anywhere. I never had a problem to enter orchestra. [flute – you always have to compete in a non-professional orchestra, 10


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persons, but they take only 2] And it’s also for the studying, it would have been the only chance because with the piano I already knew that it won’t be enough to study it. Because you always have to study the circumstances [like both instruments and play the oboe not better than piano] …but playing the oboe more or less good is more valid (I: valuable?) yes, valuable in the music world. Because piano – everybody plays it and many-many people play it more or less good like me or better like me and to get there to get a study, Studienplatz, it’s another thing. […] It’s important how many opportunities you have with the instrument.

What abilities and faculties developed in your playing?

[Playing the piano is not as social as playing the oboe. Sports in a group – more social than music in a group] what I learnt that all musicians nearly always are crazy people or some are not so social people, and I think it’s shade, it’s a pity sometimes, I experience it sometimes that it’s so difficult to get to the people, to the persons with whom you play and to get to know them more, that’s really difficult in music leisure time. [my group – very nice] It’s important how member of orchestra or another group are seeing the objective, if everyone is seeing it like a leisure and time you should enjoy, it can be really great experience. [also experienced only thinking of the quality of the music – it’s not so good in social experience, can go hand in hand, “but difficult to manage this that it’s fun and that it’s quality and you’re concentrating, because it can also be bad when you only have fun and don’t work on pieces because that’s the sense of the rehearsal. I think it’s good in my group that we are socializing after the rehearsal and on weekends sometimes, not just the rehearsal time together”]

Have music helped you in your studies and work?

I think with the discipline you can say it helps and normally here in Germany when you tell someone maybe from work or other play that you play in the orchestra or sing in the choir they find it good and make you complement and they show interest and some want to know when we have concerts [former colleagues listened to previous concerts] You have something you can talk about about music, a theme with people who also do music or like, it’s always a good topic and it makes you interesting for other people too. [now in work they know I have to go to rehearsal at 5 o clock – “a bit of respect they show and interest” – “they say that’s good” they support – sehr anerkannt.]

Anyn problems and tensions combining your hobbies and studies?

I don’t think it was a problem anytime, only sometimes you have to say O, I need to study much this week, perhaps I would need this time. But it was never a problem that I missed rehearsals. Because I knew there were these rehearsals, and they were always fixed part of the week, it’s no question, you


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just go. […] Only as I said before two groups is a bit much, only doing the orchestra would be perhaps enough. [break in the choir – 2 times. And orchestra – 1 time] [in the third semester. Because too many things to do in studies, exams and lectures – can’t do everything together – “it was really full semester that’s why I left singing”. Bremen, other time, bad orchestra – but didn’t find another, then Spain]

Did you missed it when you haven’t played?

I didn’t think I missed it somehow when I didn’t play but when I began again with this tango group I though it was good either. I can stand it not to play a long time. That’s a bit also perhaps a reason it comes clear to me that if it’s not a thing I really have to do, I can live without making music for a time, it’s perhaps not my profession, not that I have to do a professional musician. Perhaps it should not be my objective when I’m satisfied also when I’m not playing. […] For me it’s always been bereichend, it gives you something more in your life, [I: enrich??] yes, enriches and it’s about quality of life [my comments], without music life would be sad. So it’s really good to make music yourself because it makes you happy [singing – studies tell it makes you happy. “for me personally it’s like this when you sing once in a while, I don’t know how it happens, but you free yourself, you feel free, and it’s good” – similar to sport. Good mood, has an impact on how you feel. In the rehearsals we also begin to feel our body, when warming up,

You need to be aware of your body to sing. You free yourself of concerns.

Thank you word and good-bye.


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Appendix 3

Interview transcript

Natalia (Saint-Petersburg, 27, dance, 18.02.2014)

[Introductory words about research. Я пытаюсь понять, что стоит за этими увлечениями молодых людей, что за этим стоят не только индивидуальные склонности]

Ну это не только индивидуальные склонности, это потребность к общению, и люди, которые идут заниматься какими-то вещами, насчет музыки не знаю, но насчет танцев 100% люди идут общаться. […] Ну, может, вначале кто-то хочет пойти на танцы, чтобы поддержать форму, а потом люди понимают, что в этой компании им приятно, ну или в какой-то другой. В этой неприятно, в других танцах интересная компания. На самом деле танцы очень сильно делятся по тому, как люди себя ведут, как люди хотят, чтобы их воспринимали, и как они воспринимают внешний мир. Если людям не подходит эта компания, они идут и ищут себе какие-то другие танцы или ищут себе дополнительный выход эмоций.

Расскажите, как случилось, что вы увлеклись танцами?

Конкретно ирландскими танцами я увлеклась очень странно. Я просто шла по улице и думала, что же можно делать, вообще в интернете, потому что у меня появился интернет дома, […] и я думала, надо там, наверно, найти что-то хорошее, интересное, доброе, вечное. Я вспомнила, что я хотела пойти танцевать, и подумала, что хорошо было бы пойти танцевать ирландские танцы. Пришла домой, нашла в интернете занятия, которые начинались там вечером, через несколько часов, и я подумала, прекрасно, я пойду. Как раз был выходной в университете, я сходила один раз на занятие и больше я практически не пропускала занятия. […] Ну, может, не с самого первого занятия почувствовалось, но на первом занятии мне было хорошо, комфортно, и дальше тоже было хорошо и комфортно. И всегда те люди, с которыми я занималась, вели себя так, что мне было хорошо. Потому что до этого я занималась, волейболом занималась, и там мне было некомфортно, потому что я пришла уже в какой-то состоявшийся коллектив, и девочкам было некомфортно, или, может быть, им было все равно, но они находили какого-то козла отпущения. Людям неинтересно с тем, кто только что появился, у них нет общих тем, ничего общего, в этой среде да, в этой среде было неинтересно, это были чистые спортсмены. А здесь не только спортсмены, здесь люди, которые ищут что-то интересное в жизни. Они находят новых людей, находят новые интересы, даже внутри, кто-то умеет вязать, кто-то умеет шить, и к


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каждому празднику когда готовимся, что-нибудь готовим, что-то руками, кто-то шьет все костюмы, кто-то готовит танец, кто-то не знаю еще что делает. Очень много разноплановой работы, даже когда ты уже танцуешь, все равно есть общение. […] Ну, сколько, 2 года я занималась и поняла, что мне хочется преподавать. У нас было немного преподавателей, и в принципе была возможность взять новую группу, и я с еще одной девочкой взяла группу, и мы ее вели, где-то полгода-год уходит на то, чтобы подготовить группу.

Что дает вам преподавание?

Это способ передачи знаний, того, что я уже умею, я могу показать, как это надо сделать, и могу научить людей. Я могу пообщаться с ними, для меня это тоже новые люди. Это возможность научить чему-то, но научить не только танцам, а научить какому-то отношению, потому что ты всегда разговариваешь с людьми, и говоришь с ними не только конкретно о танцах, а говоришь с ними о том, как ты себя ведешь, как ты себя подаешь. Если человеку некомфортно в группе, ты ему объясняешь, что здесь никто не смеется над тобой, здесь все точно также смотрят в зеркало на себя, всем все равно, точно так же, как в жизни. Всем все равно, как делают другие, но не все равно, как люди сами на себя реагируют. Если люди на себя реагируют плохо, то и окружающие тоже так.

(И: Танец – отображение того, как ты себя ощущаешь?) Конечно, это некая социальная адаптации людей. […] Но мне нравится обсуждать с людьми, как они готовятся, как они пришли к этому или как они сейчас себя ощущают, чего они хотят от танцев.

Сколько вы занимаетесь?

Наверно, почти 7 лет. [на тот момент училась в университете, закончила в 2010. профессия – программист, совсем не связана c увлечением, с регулируемым рабочим графиком]. Сама организую свое время. […] Должно быть определенное количество часов в день, но могу прийти попозже и уйти попозже.

Сколько времени занимают танцы?

Я все время пересчитываю, потому что все зависит от расписания. На какой-то момент было 6 дней в неделю, и было совсем тяжело, поэтому мы взяли еще кого-то в преподаватели […]. Сейчас получается, что я веду три занятия в неделю и плюс четыре занятия, на которых я занимаюсь, но это уже минимум. […] Занятия длится 1,5 часа, это те занятия, которые я веду, для начинающих, потому что им тяжело больше, а занятия для старшей группы, где я занимаюсь, может длиться два часа, два с половиной часа, пока нам не надоест, пока нас не выгонят из зала.


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Вы сами занимаетесь?

Нет, у нас есть преподаватель. Но если ее не будет, мы сами занимаемся, у нас все равно кто-то должен рулить процессом, включать музыку, говорить, что мы сейчас танцуем […] Это может делать любой из старшей группы, но обычно мы выбираем и говорим, ты сегодня рулишь процессом, если нет преподавателя, который обычно проводит занятия. Потому что [Имя], которая ведет занятия, она занимается дольше нас, ей проще, чем нам, схватить какие-то сложные элементы, а потом это все показать, поэтому она все показывает, все структурирует. Т.е. фактически преподаватель есть, но можно обойтись без него, хотя это не так интересно.

Из чего состоит типичное занятие?

[разминка (общее для всех спортсменов и танцоров + специфические упражнения для ирланд.танцев) + обучение танцу или чистка техники в танце (проработка упражнений в танце)] У нас достаточно соревновательная направленность, и мы стараемся вычистить все, и дело даже не в соревнованиях, а мы стараемся, чтобы это выглядело аутентично, так, как это должно быть. [стилистические номера девочек из балета – можно посмотреть, но не то] Мы стараемся делать не стилизацию, а (И: настоящие?) да, настоящие ирландские танцы. Дальше мы тянемся, чтобы ничего не болело, чтобы не выросли огромные икры, больше, чем у футболистов, потому что мы очень много прыгаем, поэтому мышцы на ногах очень сильно растут.

Другие тоже долго занимаются?

[Имя], которая преподает и вместе со мной руководит клубом, или я вместе с ней, сложно уже сказать, кто с кем, [Имя] занимается 9 лет ирландскими танцами, до этого у нее была хореографическая школа. [4-5 лет – минимум в старшем составе] Со старшим составом, с которым мы танцуем по 4-5 лет, мы периодически встречаемся. Мы договариваемся на выходные встретиться, сходить куда-нибудь в театр, встретить вместе новый год. Этот Новый год мы встречали большой компанией, как раз в основном из старшей состава. Это такая семья, правда, это действительно друзья. А с теми, кто из младшего состава, мы в основном встречаемся на концертах. Да, нам тоже очень весело, очень здорово, я очень рада их видеть, но чаще всего это происходит так, или кто-то отдельно зовет на день рождения, празднует, такое тоже бывает, или устраиваются специальные дни рождения для того, чтобы потанцевать. [«танцевальный день рождения», «танцевальное незанятие», устраиваем у себя в зале, танцуем в основном народные, танцуется все подряд. Много видов ирландских танцев, есть сложные на много человек, сложно выучить]


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Совместная работа при подготовке к мероприятию как происходит?

Кто-то решает, что надо бы что-нибудь станцевать, и все говорят, да-да-да-да-да, точно в этот раз танцуем что-нибудь новое. И тут начинается, а что мы танцуем, и все начинаю выбирать музыку, может быть, не все, но половина начинает выбирать музыку и предлагать варианты. […] Дальше кто-нибудь ставит номер, выбирается человек, вот сейчас у нас есть человек, который больше всех номеров ставит, ну, это необязательно совершенно. Вот у девочки получается хорошо, и ей комфортно от этого, и она ставит номера. Ей сейчас не столько нравится танцевать, сколько заниматься хореографией. Потом есть люди, которые умеют шить, и возникает вопрос, где мы будем шить и сколько это будет стоить, и понятно, что самим сшить простой костюм намного проще, чем заказать [дешевле или вообще не имеет смысла заказывать «балахон – зачем заказывать, если это там четыре шва?»] Мы в основном делаем костюмы сами [раньше – девочка, которая хорошо умела шить и многое делала сама, но сейчас с нами не танцует, «выходим по-другому, кто-то другой шьет костюмы, я периодически». «у кого есть швейная машинка и кто это умеет делать»] [В старшей группе – 8 чел.]

Насколько постоянно занимаетесь или бывают ли перерывы?

У меня практически не бывает перерывов. Если я болею или что-то такое. У нас даже летом занятия не прекращаются. Мы не можем прекратить заниматься. Т.е. у нас сокращаются занятия по количеству, чтобы можно было на выходные куда-то поехать всем, но все равно в субботу часто встречаемся, потому что никуда не уехали, почему бы не собраться и не потанцевать. И сокращаются занятия для начинающих. [объединяются, т.к. многие уезжают, неинтересно по 2-3 чел.]

Все время в этой студии занимались?

В этой студии все время, но просто в какой-то момент у нас сменился руководитель, потом еще раз сменился, и в конце концов осталась я руководить или еще одна девочка.

Что поменялось в школе за это время?

[более соревновательная направленность. Многие интересуются этим. Особенно международные соревнования – выехать хотя бы на 4 дня, на недельку, энтузиазм. «возможность выехать посмотреть, как танцуют в других странах». Здесь соревнуешься только со своими, в т.ч. в дружественный клуб, «половину людей в лицо знаешь». Иностранцам трудно въезжать в Россию для соревнований, с визой и далеко. Многие


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наши танцоры выезжают в Европу и занимают приличные места. Но надо заниматься несколько лет, чтобы соревноваться]

Что для вас поменялось за это время?

Для меня это прямо стало семьей. Т.е. когда я пришла, тут были интересные люди, но мы не очень общались. Мне очень хотелось общаться с этими людьми, когда меня первый раз позвали на день рождения, я была такая счастливая, ничего себе, я общаюсь с этими людьми! Я общаюсь с этими прекрасными интересными людьми. С тех пор многое поменялось, я могу любого человека из нашей танцевальной школы пригласить, для меня это не будет каким-то шоком или чем-то таким […]. Т.е. я могу прийти на занятие и сказать, пойдемте после занятия ко мне пить чай, и кто-нибудь согласится и пойдет пить чай, и прекрасно. (И: это близкие люди? Свой круг?) Да, старший и средний состав, кто занимается минимум 2 года. Я их хорошо знаю, потому что мы видимся два раза в неделю и общаемся не только на тему танцев.

Как оцениваете развитие своих навыков и познаний?

Ну это грандиозный рост! Сначала, когда я начинала заниматься, я доросла до какого-то уровня, а какие-то знания приходили через два года, и ты начинаешь понимать, что ты все делал совсем не так, как надо […]. Сейчас почти такого не случается [что обнаруживаешь, что неправильно делаешь азы] Потом у нас появился преподаватель из Ирландии [сначала был номинальный преподаватель. Для участия в соревнованиях у тебя должен быть преподаватель, который сдал экзамен. В России сложно с этим всем. Видели эту преподавательницу два раза за все время. Потом другой, который тоже не приезжает. Взял другой преподаватель […], с большим опытом преподавания и участия в соревнованиях, просто интересный человек] с тех пор уровень очень сильно вырос.

После многих лет занятий насколько важно для тебя развиваться дальше?

Тут есть варианты. Можно расти в разные стороны. Можно ставить какие-то постановочные или продолжать соревноваться выше, быстрее, сильнее или развивать школу в количестве, потому что сейчас небольшая школа, потому что все-таки интерес больше такой, на уютную обстановку, потому что когда камерное.. может, хочется, чтобы нас было больше, но очень сложно что-то сделать, когда ты понимаешь, что для этого очень много придется тратить сил на людей, которые приходят, и не останется времени на себя. Потому что, кроме того, что мы преподаем, мы еще сами занимаемся. [один – одно дело, «когда у тебя две-три группы, все становится намного сложнее»]. Сейчас у нас есть распределение такое, когда у каждого человека должно быть не больше 4-5 дней в неделю, мы


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делали расписание так, чтобы у всех было 4 дня в неделю, у всех преподавателей, в итоге решили, что вот бы еще одно занятие тоже было бы здорово. И у меня получилось 4 дня и где-то 5 часов вот в этот день, это очень много, но сложно разделить по-другому. А у девочек получилось по пять дней, которые тоже преподают. 5 дней – то слишком много, но тогда не получается уделять на себя достаточно времени. Хочется заниматься не три раза в неделю, и дело даже не в том, что три раза в неделю, а в том, что ирландские танцы разные, и хочется и этим, и тем позаниматься – больше поработать над степом, над мягкими танцами.

[танцы и их виды – мягкие, жесткие, групповые (только готовим на соревнования). 4 уровня мастерства в зависимости от сложности танца.]

Какой у тебя интерес в танцах для себя? Ты ставишь перед собой какую-то цель?

У меня сейчас определенной цели нет, потому что мне нравится общение. Я понимаю, что мне нравится эта школа, это то, чего я, наверно, можно сказать, добилась в жизни. Эти люди, это комфортное состояние в какой-то компании и комфортное состояние в каких-то занятиях определенных, и мне есть, что передать людям, чему научить людей. Здесь я понимаю, что да, здесь мне хорошо. […] Хотя я понимаю, что у меня могут поменяться интересы, но при этом не хочется ни в коем случае бросать это, потому что и люди хорошие, и уровень хороший, и все это вместе интересно. В конце концов, если не хочется заниматься самими танцами или тяжело, можно заниматься организацией или очень много всего околостоящего, поэтому тут всегда можно найти что-то.

Насколько для тебя важно самой танцевать или преподавать?

И то и другое. […] Потому что, ты даже когда сам танцуешь, мы не танцуем обычно по одному, всегда есть человек, который танцует вместе с тобой. И вот старший состав –

это люди, которые все время преподают друг другу. На занятии 5-6 человек, и все эти люди танцуют и преподают другу другу одновременно. [в группе для начинающих – легче, много общих ошибок] Тут, чтобы сказать, что человек ошибается, нужно внимательно смотреть, и смотреть на каждого тяжело и не всегда понятно, что не так. [тут 10 пар глаз смотрят – по-другому] Это реальное такое вот общение, когда есть что-то сложное, и ты одновременно и преподаватель, и ученик. […] Вот здесь это, наверно, самое такое, самое интересное, когда есть люди, которым ты можешь преподавать, и одновременно у них учиться. […] В этой группе все всегда находятся в таком положении, что они всегда могут поправить того человека, который говорит, как надо сделать. Иногда находятся интересные решения […].


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Когда ты можешь на самом деле не знать или если ты даже не можешь сделать что-то сложное, но ты можешь посмотреть и сказать, что неправильно, это просто такое – а! ничего себе! Или там делаешь какие-то новые элементы или там просто пять раз послушал и делаешь новый элементы, и у тебя получается, это тоже что-то такое, приводящее в эйфорию, потому что через семь лет ноги сами начинают делать то, что ты от них не ожидаешь!

Как ты совмещаешь работу и танцы? Трудно ли совмещать?

Трудно совмещать на самом деле, и на танцы уходит столько сил, что на работу не всегда остаются силы. Т.е. ты приходишь и все равно надо что-то делать, но ты думаешь, вот, сегодня все равно надо идти на танцы. И с утра сложно встать, потому что вчера ты пришел в 12, потому что никак не могли выйти, не знаю, позанимались и решили, что надо попить чаю после занятия или просто закончили поздно […]. Сложно, потому что очень много времени уходит и много сил. Сейчас, может быть, попроще, когда я занималась 5-6 раз в неделю, то было катастрофически тяжело. […] Не только по времени, но физически, потому что приходилось идти на работу, и понимаешь, что напрягаться не очень хочется, а надо напрягать голову, надо думать, а хочется сесть и пить чай и все. Но я не могу на работе сесть и пить чай, это странно.

Ты вообще довольна своей работой?

Да. Я понимаю, что, если бы я не занималась танцами, я бы уделяла больше времени и сильно быстрее бы выросла профессионально, но танцы занимают столько, столько места в моей голове, в моей жизни, что до некоторой степени они оказываются важнее, чем работа. (И: Даже так?) Да. Я понимаю, что хорошо, хорошо, надо бы там позаниматься, надо бы что-то почитать, но прихожу после танцев такая уставшая и думаю, нет, завтра почитаю, с утра почитаю, хотя это действительно очень надо, это очень поможет сделать мне работу не за два дня, а за час. Но я все равно не могу заставить себя сесть и читать.

(И: Ты можешь дома работать или в офисе?) В принципе, я могу дома работать, но мне дома сложно работать, я очень сильно отвлекаюсь, поэтому предпочитаю в офисе.

Чем ты занималась в детстве?

С самого детства моя мама водила всех детей куда-нибудь на занятия, поэтому для меня не заниматься ничем – это вообще странно. Все чем-нибудь занимаются, даже мой старший брат, у которого ребенок, он у группе играет [Н. закончила музык.школу, по классу хора] Потом или во время у нас были какие-то периодически занятия хореографией, еще до музыкальной школы я занималась художественной гимнастикой, еще


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какая-то музыкальная школа была, что конкретно, не помню. Потом я пошла на волейбол, это то, что было мое собственное. Мне захотелось, я узнала, это было в классе 7м или 8м. К нам пришли в школу и стали рекламировать. Мне особенно рекламировали, т.к. я высокая, и всем кажется, что это идеально подойдет. В принципе, у меня нормально получалось, и если бы не девочки, им было бы комфортно со мной, все было бы нормально. Но им было некомфортно или им все было неинтересно, а мне было некомфортно с людьми, они не хотели общаться, не то, чтобы мне надо было общаться-общаться, нет, они не хотели со мной заниматься. Были парные упражнения, они не хотели со мной делать парные упражнения. Были упражнения, в которых мне надо было что-то объяснить побольше, они были не готовы это сделать. Ну, я совсем новый человек, они уже все умеют, им абсолютно не интересно. В том числе из-за этого отношения, когда я пришла в танце, где всем все интересно, все готовы тебе объяснять, даже те, что на два шага больше, чем ты, он готов тебе все объяснить, рассказать, причем это независимо от группы. Есть такое […], что людям нравится друг другу помогать. [не запрещаю на своих занятиях друг другу помогать, только если становится слишком шумно. В волейболе – не было спец. упражнений, неинтересно было вводить в курс дела] Как-то я позанималась полтора года, но потом я получила сотрясение мозга, а потом мне уже было неинтересно возвращаться. [разговор про сотрясение мозга]

Танцами в школе не занималась?

В школу я ходила на хореографию со своими сестрами, сколько-то, потом начался волейбол, и я бросила хореографию, потому что там было как-то скучно, там были все совсем начинающие, а у меня уже была хорошая база. [что делали на хореографии? Базовые элементы, что должно было превратиться в танец, но мне было так скучно, что все не превращается, не превращается.. мама была не против, т.к. какая-то физкультура есть, и ладно]. После волейбола моя подруга пошла танцевать эстрадные танцы, ей было грустно одной, и она сказала, пойдем со мной, и я сказала, ладно, пойдем. Мы пошли танцевать эстрадные, но как-то все было.. мы как раз танцевали, но что-то мне как-то было не очень, потому что мне надо было больше, сильнее, а там были люди, которые приходят-уходят, приходят-уходят. […] Т.е. я понимала, что я несупер круто танцую, потому что мы не делаем нужные мне элементы, а делаем самые базовые. […] Может быть, мне хотелось, чтобы на меня больше внимания обращали, потому что приходят новые люди, и на них больше. [сейчас одна из трудностей в собственном преподавании – не знаешь, на каком уровне строить занятия. Либо одним неинтересно, либо другой потеряется и больше не придет. Стараешься строить занятия, чтобы «у сильного было много своих собственных подзадач» ему нескучно, что у него есть свой challenge]

[занималась эстрадными танцами полтора-два года. Но «это было так», 1-2 раза в неделю, то преподаватель болеет. В школе любили болеть –


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сейчас по-другому, болеть никакого интереса нет.] [хорошо получилось с математическими предметами, но была гуманитарная школа. В университете поняла, что хорошие отметки в школе ничего не значат. Слабый учебник.]

Как ты решила поступать на этот факультет?

Там училась моя мама, на соседнем факультете, матмехе, мой папа. Мой старший брат учился на аналогичной кафедре в ЛЭТИ. Моя старшая сестра в этот момент училась на матмехе. И мне просто никак не приходило в голову, куда можно пойти учиться. До этого я поступала на факультет фотографии, потому что мне это было интересно, не поступила [плохая оценка] Потом поступила на факультет прикладной математики. [после непоступления на фотографию пошла на подготовительное отделение, там училась год, и после этого поступила. Оттуда поступали почти все. Тренировали специально на сдачу экзаменов. Людям из математических школ было легче поступить.]

Ты вообще довольна своим образованием?

Да, даже если я еще чем-то захочу заниматься, это дает такую приятную базу знаний.

А как все-таки получилось заняться танцами?

Да, это случайно получилось. В принципе, я ничем не занималась в этот момент и у меня достаточно времени на то, чтобы 1-2 раза в неделю заниматься чем-нибудь, потому что по вечерам мне нечего было делать, хотя мы занимались в Петергофе, и нужно было доехать в Петергоф, потом из Петергофа. […] Это занимает много сил, но когда ты каждый вечер сидишь потом дома, это совершенно неинтересно, и начинаешь искать чего-нибудь. (И: У тебя было какое-то представление, что это должно быть?) Я на самом деле ничего особо не искала, просто пришла один раз однажды домой и решила, что неплохо было бы заняться ирландскими танцами, нашла и тут же пошла. Все. Не было каких-то долгих раздумий. [плакат на улице] Я не уверена, что хорошо представляла, что такое ирландские танцы, просто пришло в голову, и оказались занятия в начинающей группе, я вот так пришла и все.

А как у тебя в семье относятся к твоим танцам?

В каком смысле? Хорошо относятся. Мой младший брат даже сказал, что он хочет заниматься, и он занимается уже, наверно, два года. Сначала я у него преподавала, теперь все остальные. […] Он на предыдущих соревнованиях он занял практически все первые места, которые возможно


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было занять. [приглашает родителей, друзей на концерт, кто-то обижается, всем нравится]

Рассматривала ли ты варианты, чтобы это стало основной профессией?

Я не ищу путей для такой возможности. Если бы я искала, я бы, наверно, нашла, и все было устроила. Т.е. я не считаю, что это невозможно, это возможно, но мне не очень хочется именно организовывать с самого начала это вот все. Я, конечно, понимаю, что это интересно, организовать с самого начала, полностью построить, потому что, для того, чтобы сделать это основным своим занятием, нужно иметь большую школу, иначе это не окупится. То, что сейчас, у нас очень низкая аренда, и от аренды практически ничего не остается, только на чистый энтузиазм остается. [если хорошее помещение – нужно брать большие группы, много групп. В том помещении, которое сейчас – неудобно, много времени и денег на рекламу, сложно добраться, поэтому у нас небольшие группы и небольшое помещение]

Но есть и свои преимущества?

Да, в этом коллективе я знаю всех, все люди проходят через меня, потому я веду те самые первые несколько месяцев. […] Раньше я вела два уровня, но потом мы решили, что это многовато, сейчас я веду начинающих. (И: Я так поняла, тебе нравится заниматься с начинающими) Очень сильно видно прогресс. […] Ты понимаешь, что вот, ты научил человека тому, что необходимо, чтобы перейти на следующий уровень. Я все равно переживаю за их успехи. Когда мы идем на соревнования, и я уже год-полгода не преподаю у них, я все равно за них переживаю и считаю, что они мои ученики.

[перерыв – чай]

Помогают ли занятия танцами в обычной жизни?

Я просто замечаю, что, если приходишь с плохим настроением, всегда уходишь с занятий с хорошим настроением. Когда я еще только начинала вести занятия, я понимала, что самое главное, что я должна давать людям, это хорошее настроение. Потому что они пришли сюда первый раз не для того, чтобы научиться там быстро срочно танцевать лучше всех. Нет, все эти люди пришли сюда, чтобы, кто-то поддержать форму, кто-то пообщаться, кто-то еще зачем, но все они будут рады, если им принесут хорошее настроение. Поэтому, когда я иду на занятие, если я иду преподавать, у меня всегда должно быть хорошее настроение для этих людей. Я всегда должна им улыбаться и поднимать настроение. Потому


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что преподаватель с плохим настроением – это вся группа с плохим настроением, группа разваливается просто из-за такого. И мои ученики, кто-то удивляется, кто-то радуется, что он придет и отсюда уйдет с хорошим настроением, даже если он устал, даже если ему одну ногу сложно передвинуть, он все равно придет в следующий раз, потому что ему было хорошо. Это то, что и мне всегда поднимает настроение, потому что я знаю, что я приду, и у меня должно быть хорошее настроение, и оно всегда есть. […] Первые несколько занятий я старалась, а сейчас это какой-то психологический якорь называется? […] Ты им даешь хорошее настроение, а они тебе возвращают хорошее настроение. Потому что, если ты им ничего не даешь, им сложно что-то вернуть.

Когда мы общаемся старшим составом, мы очень друг друга поддерживаем, потому что ты приходишь со своим плохим настроением, и ты можешь рассказать, можешь рассказать, и тебя поддержат, тебя обнимут, тебя там, не знаю, не будут сильно ругать на занятии и наоборот, побольше внимания уделят.

Людям нравится друг с другом находиться, и они хотят, чтобы человеку, который рядом был, было хорошо. Это, может быть, отчасти и для себя, потому что тебе хорошо, когда всем вокруг хорошо. Но это такой разумный эгоизм.

Что самое ценное и проявляется ли это в увлечении?

Это, наверно, то, о чем мы говорили, это отношения между людьми. [неважно, где – в семье, в коллективе, в магазине – если тебе рады в семье, в коллективе, ты будешь туда ходить]

Есть какие-то другие ценности?

Для меня еще, наверно, важно, что то, что для тебя важно, ты должен сам делать. Не надо ждать от других людей, надо просто нести это другим людям. Т.е., если ты хочешь, чтобы люди приносили тебе хорошее настроение, принеси им, но не жди, что они тебе принесут. […] [подойти к людям, которым плохо на улице. Некоторые подходят и интересуются. Есть люди, которым все равно, или которые не знают, что делать. Я помогаю слепым дойти до метро, это не проблема. Они даже ходят быстро, нет никакой сложности.]

Испытывала ли ты какие-то трудности в танцах?

Скорее в отношениях. [плохое настроение – раз в полгода случаются неприятные ситуации]. За 6-7 лет, что я занимаюсь, была одна действительно неприятная ситуация, когда мы поругались, и вообще вот не хотелось разговаривать. И ты вроде понимаешь, что виноват, но человек, который виноват, вообще не чувствует себя виноватым,


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чувствует, что его обидели, и все плохо, и все к нему относятся плохо. Но это не так, что к нему относятся плохо.

А по здоровью?

Периодически случаются травмы, но самое обидное, когда готовишься к соревнованиям [… страшно обидно, человек готовился, и бытовая травма – чаще, чем травмы в зале. Серьезно девочка сломала ногу один раз. Я подворачивала ногу – ограничения по упражнениям. Особый навык обращения с движениями, умеешь не травмироваться – очень много прыгаешь и понимаешь, как надо приземляться.]

Ты еще чем-то занимаешься в свободное время?

Для себя играю на бороне, это ирландский барабан, изредка беру висл, такая свирель ирландская. [когда начинала, хороший преподаватель, которому хотелось передавать знания] (И: Почему инструменты?) У меня музыкальное образование, и хотелось новое попробовать. [домашние занятия, могу позволить себе пойти. Поняла, что нравится. Ходила играла целыми днями палочкой. Сейчас позвали играть в группу, где не хватает борониста. Сходила на одну репетицию – хорошо, но не тот уровень, чтобы делать это профессионально. У меня нет времени заниматься этим постоянно. Буду готовиться, играть перед репетицией, но у меня есть ирландские танцы. Наверно, сыграю с ними пару концертов, что будет дальше, не знаю]. Из ирландских танцев и игре в этой группе я выберу ирландские танцы.

Откуда берете музыку для танцев?

[традиционная ирланд.музыка. Не все возможно скачать из интернета. Покупают диски у музыкантов, которые нравятся – «в основном это благодарность музыканту» - те, которые играют для соревнований. Разная для растяжки и танцев. Для постановочных танцев – часто обработанная музыка. Традиционная музыка звучит, как баян. Может ничего не быть, кроме ритма и баяна. Ставят номер, чтобы было ярко, интересно смотреть.]

Насколько тебе нравится выступать?

[нравится выступать – “это в чистом виде адреналин”. Ощущение, когда все стоят за сценой, и ты стоишь за сценой. Еще адреналин – когда учишь что-то, и получается удивительно быстро. Подготовка – «Ну всегда это такие приятные и немножко сплачивающие коллектив» (специальное время для репетиций, плюс идут куда-то вместе после занятия)] [Фестивали – день Святого Патрика в СПб. Москва – чаще без танцевальных групп. В СПб – главное событие для интересующихся


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кельтской культурой. Музыка и музыканты, потом выступают танцевальные коллективы. Школы из разных городов. 2 крупных фестиваля в год. Плюс 2 стабильных концерта. Почему интересно? «всем хочется выступать. Это детское что-то такое. я вот сделал что-то такое, я всем покажу». Практически нет таких, кто занимается для себя. «я участвую, потому что это какая-то движуха, не то, что я каждый вторник-пятницу хожу на занятия» - без монотонности еженедельных занятий. К фестивалям готовишься месяц, танец танцуется пару раз. К соревнованиям готовятся намного продолжительнее.] [пересекается с другими людьми со сходными интересами. Знают друг друга, но плотно не общаются.]

Благодарность.


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Appendix 4.

Respondents: their main characteristics, serious leisure (SL) and other hobbies

Berlin Age Main occupation Education SL Institution (SL) Activities, connected to SL Other hobbies

Mario 32 software developer (full-time) Bachelor degree Music: composing music, writing lyrics, playing guitar, singing, performing

self-organized: does it at home and for playing rents a space for rehearsals

managing personal website, arranging concerts and trips, contacting other musicians; recording

Helen 26 student (Master's degree)/ part-tme administrative work

Bachelor degree/ studying (Master's degree)

Singing independent youth choir + private lessons

playing the flute, playing the piano

Andreas 27 student (Bachelor degree)/ part-time work (web graphics)

Studying (Bachelor degree)

Singing 3 choirs: independent jazzchoir, former school choir, project choir

computer games, cinema

Astrid 26 foreign language assistant (full-time)

Master's degree Playing oboe/ singing university orchestra + private lessons/ university big choir

piano playing riding bicycle, latin american culture

Robert 31 researcher (psychology, full-time)

PhD degree Singing university chamber choir + self-organized choir

composing playing the piano, photography

Peter 27 student (Master's degree)/ part-tme research work (biotechnology)

Studying (Master's degree)

Singing university chamber choir + self-organized choir

composing; managing the choir, establishing contacts with bands for cooperation, arranging the concerts and recording

gothic music, DJ-ing


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Leo 26 researcher (biology, full-time) Master's degree/ studying (PhD degree)

Music: playing bass guitar in a band, composing music, singing, performing

self-organized band: have a special space for rehearsals

Playing guitar and drums picking mushrooms (member of the association), gardening

Hans 25 student (Master's degree)/ part-time work (library + research institute)


Playing cello university orchestra

leader in the cello group

Miriam 23 student (Master's degree) Bachelor degree/ studying (Master's degree)

Playing viola/ dancing (latino, ballroom)

university orchestra/ dance studio

Olga 24 social worker (part-time) incomplete higher education

Music: composing music, writing lyrics, playing guitar and piano, singing

self-organized: does it at home

working with computer programme to record the compositions and work on the sound

Meili 26 student (Master's degree)/ part-time work (teaching and playing zither)


Singing/ dancing (ballroom)

university chamber choir/ dancing studio

zither, documentary films

Maria 31 software tester (full-time) Bachelor degree Singing university choir sports (pilates, swimming)

Frank 30 unemployed Bachelor degree Photography self-organized reading about photo journalism,

riding bicycle, travelling

Saint-Petersburg

Age Occupation Education SL Institution (SL) Activities, connected to SL Other hobbies

Andrey 24 Lawyer (part-time) specialist diploma Playing the violin

state musical school martial arts (wushu), singing, writing lyrics

Masha 30 Researcher (biology, full-time)

specialist diploma/ studying (PhD degree)

Singing (bel canto)

individual private classes/ state musical school

Hiking

Lena 25 Researcher (physiology, full-time)

specialist diploma/ studying (PhD degree)

Dancing (contemporary)

Private dance studio

playing guitar, singing, drawing, writing


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Dima 34 programmer (full-time) specialist diploma Theatre (acting) non-commercial amateur theatre

Additional master-classes martial arts (Chi Kung)

Natalia 27 programmer (full-time) specialist diploma Dancing (Irish) dance studio (partly self-organized)

teaching dance, sewing irish music, playing irish instruments

Veronica 24 student (Bachelor degree) studying (Bachelor degree)

Cinema self-organized studio

managing studio (administrative work, leadership in the group) and other work necessary for film-making

Drawing, writing, watching films, reading

Larisa 28 content manager (full-time) specialist diploma Playing the violin

private musical college + band + jams

composing, young musician projects and events

Kolya 23 student (specialist diploma)/ part-time work (woodcarving)

studying (specialist diploma)

Drawing drawing classes by the Academy of the Arts

woodcarving, modelling with clay

baseball

Lesha 18 student (Bachelor degree)/ part-time work (McDonalds)

studying (Bachelor degree)

Singing boys choir + self-organized

working with computer programme to record the compositions and work on the sound, piano playing

drawing

Nadya 24 researcher (applied mathematics, full-time)

Master's degree/ studying (PhD degree)

Modelling with clay/ Dancing (ballroom)

state art school/ private dance studio

drawing

Dasha 27 programmer (full-time) specialist diploma Playing the violin

state musical school concerts, music festivals

Yulia 32 sales manager (full-time) specialist diploma Dancing (tribal fusion)

private dance studio costumes, physical training, yoga

Turkish music, books about Turkish culture

Anya 19 student (specialist diploma)/ part-time work (assistant on children's excursions)

studying (specialist diploma)

Playing the guitar + singing

state musical school/ folklore ensemble

Viktor 26 manager (full-time) specialist diploma Drawing drawing classes by the Academy of the Arts


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ZDES Working Papers

Arbeitspapiere des Zentrums für Deutschland- und Europastudien

Рабочие тетради Центра изучения Германии и Европы

Universität Bielefeld – Fakultät für Soziologie Postfach 100131 – 33501 Bielefeld – Deutschland

Staatliche Universität St. Petersburg – 7/9 Universitetskaja Nab.

199034 St. Petersburg – Russland

http://zdes.spbu.ru/

[email protected]

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