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Leisure and Meaning-Making: The Pursuit of a Meaningful Life Through Leisure

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Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World

Part of the book series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era ((LSGE))

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to identify and describe the role of leisure in the pursuit of a meaningful life, informed by the literature from interdisciplinary perspectives. Specifically, the chapter emphasizes the contributions of leisure engagement to promoting and/or maintaining: (a) a joyful life, (b) a connected life, (c) a discovered life, (d) a composed life and (e) a hopeful and empowered life. Not only do these elements seem to represent distinct factors of meaningful engagement with life through leisure, but multiple meanings can also be gained from a single leisure engagement experience, and these meaning themes can be interconnected. Considering a unique and distinct characteristic of leisure as freely chosen, autonomous and intrinsically motivated engagement, research on meaning-making and meaningful engagement with life seems to benefit greatly from examining a variety of leisure phenomena in their meaning-making functions. The ideas/insights presented in this chapter seem to provide a useful framework to advance this important, emerging area of inquiry. Apparently, leisure’s potential contributions to meaningful, engaged living should not be underestimated either conceptually or practically.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Yoshitaka Iwasaki

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  1. Yoshitaka Iwasaki
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Government Meera Girls College, Rajasthan, India

    Anju Beniwal

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India

    Rashmi Jain

  3. School of Film, Music & Performing Arts, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Karl Spracklen

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Iwasaki, Y. (2018). Leisure and Meaning-Making: The Pursuit of a Meaningful Life Through Leisure. In: Beniwal, A., Jain, R., Spracklen, K. (eds) Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70975-8_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70975-8_14

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70974-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70975-8

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