Whither the Interdisciplinary Study of Play and Leisure?

Abstract

Scholars devoted to the study of play have carved out for themselves a crucial interdisciplinary field of positive social science. This interdiscipline is composed of an anthropology and a sociology of play resting on a conceptual core rooted primarily in philosophy, psychology, physiology, and ethology. Therefore, on the one hand, researchers in leisure studies should be turning to the individual side of the study of play when they want to explain the creative/imaginative foundation of the pursuit of free-time activities and the personal fulfillment that follows. On the other hand, the anthropology and sociology of play, and hence play studies in general, can profit mightily from a more profound understanding of leisure theory and research and those many free-time activities that can be enormously enhanced by play.