LEISURE AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS: From modern times to postmodernity

Abstract

The present study aims to understand the sociocultural transformations experienced in contemporary life, and the way they influence and are influenced by work, free time and leisure. At first, it introduces a discussion about paradigm changes from modernity to postmodernity. Later on, to situate this analysis about leisure, performing a brief passage in the sociocultural construction of leisure, and how these earlier historical eras influence this concept nowadays. Therefore, we point to paradigm changes from modernity to postmodernity, although we are still not able to evaluate the paths that can be taken according to these changes, since the analytical categories built to interpret them are still quite inaccurate. It is possible to affirm that human experience through new sociocultural boundaries favor the creation of new communitarianism and individualism ideologies, redefining and being redefined by work, free time and leisure.