Leisure vs. Obligation

“The relationship between obligation and leisure is complex,” begins the article I have chosen to read from the Journal of Leisure Research this week. Before stumbling upon “Leisure and Obligation: An Investigation of Volunteer Tourists' Experience at Kenya's Taita Discovery Center” I would normally have categorized these two ideas as opposites with cut-and-dry differences. But after learning about these research participants’/volunteer tourists’ experiences in Kenya I realized there is more of a continuum between leisure and obligation.

This study was conducted at a Kenyan Discovery Center located between East and West sections of a National Park. The goal of this Center is to conserve the wildlife population’s corridor between the two sections. The difficulty is there are private and communal lands in between this popular migration route so there are obvious conflicts between families, farmers and wild animals. The Discovery Center realizes it needs to work with the community in order to protect the wildlife and find a balance that benefits both stakeholders.

To do this, Taita Discovery Center relies on tourists attracted to wildlife viewing, conservation, and public service. Traditional tourism is almost always classified as a leisure activity because it is not mandatory, you are free to do what you like, and you are, hopefully, enjoying yourself. The opposite of this spectrum would be an obligated activity such as going to work.

The interesting part of this research study is that the tourists who come to this discovery center do so to work AND enjoy themselves. In fact, working in the fields of conservation management and community development is what makes their trip fun.

The results of this study, or why obligatory leisure is desired, came down to these 6 things:

“obligations were described as agreeable because they ( 1 ) were freely chosen and volunteers were not coerced in any way, (2) allowed the volunteers to differentiate themselves from traditional tourists, (3) occurred in novel physical and social settings, (4) were directly related to global causes about which the volunteers felt strongly, (5) were enjoyable, and (6) were perceived as free from evaluation.”

While I never initially thought about it in this way, I think these reasons for enjoyment make perfect sense. It comes down to the idea of truly enjoying what you do and finding value in your work. It’s sort of inspiring in a way – people spending their vacations or time off to volunteer and help out a community of people and animals, and they’re still having as much fun as they would in some tropical resort. The work, the company, and the surroundings are rewarding, not burdening.

On that note: “Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life”