The Role Leisure Plays

VIU professor assesses leisure in the time of a pandemic.

The urgent need to stop people from gathering in close proximity to one another to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus took away or severely restricted most forms of leisure activities outside the home during the pandemic. We asked VIU Recreation and Tourism Management Professor Joanne Schroeder, Co-Director of the VIU World Leisure Centre of Excellence and the first female chair of the World Leisure Organization (WLO) Board of Directors, why leisure is important and how the global pandemic is changing our perception of the role leisure plays in our lives.

What is leisure?

“The World Leisure Organization defines it as a central force that enhances the human condition,” says Schroeder. “There are many activities that fall under the umbrella of leisure: sport, recreation, tourism, travel, arts and culture, dining out, reading, shopping or play. It’s this concept of the freedom that people have to choose to participate or pursue activities of interest to them or that give them pleasure.” On a global scale, there continues to be inequities in access to leisure activities for all people, and government and non-government agencies continue to search for a solution.

“The reason why there is a World Leisure Organization that has consultative status to the United Nations is because the world acknowledges we are at a critical point,” says Schroeder. “Countries with a better socioeconomic status see leisure as a critical aspect of enhancing society. Yet in many areas of the world, pursuit of leisure is only for the affluent while many workers are employed at little more than subsistence wages.”

How has leisure evolved during the pandemic?

“At the root of it is community. When we come together as a group, we are stronger as individuals,” says Schroeder. “We do things like eat together, walk in parks together, play together and socialize together. Those are all an aspect of leisure and when we remove those, we can see a huge impact on our health and well-being.” Historically, people often think of physical buildings, whether they are private or public, as the places and spaces where we engage in leisure. “But the reality is leisure activities moved outside of those facilities and I believe that it is going to be emphasized even more as we come out of the pandemic,” says Schroeder. Formed in 1952, the World Leisure Organization is a non-profit, non-governmental body of individuals and organizations from all parts of the world that promotes leisure as integral to social, cultural, economic and sustainable environmental development. Schroeder says the COVID-19 virus has created further opportunities for introspection on the way we spend our free time and perhaps insight on the way forward in a post-pandemic future. In her role as chair of the WLO board, she hopes to elevate the conversation of leisure across the globe. Schroeder examines how the pandemic has impacted leisure in the research paper, Thinking about leisure during a global pandemic, which was published in the World Leisure Journal in September, 2020. The paper was co-written by Drs. Suzanne de la Barre, Garrett Stone and Janet McKeown, VIU Recreation and Tourism Management Professors, and was submitted by the VIU World Leisure Centre of Excellence. 

“When we come together as a group, we are stronger as individuals. We do things like eat together, walk in parks together, play together and socialize together. Those are all an aspect of leisure and when we remove those, we can see a huge impact on our health and well-being.”

Joanne Schroeder

VIU Recreation and Tourism Management Professor