Casual leisure: a conceptual statement

Since 1982, the year the serious leisure perspective was first set out, the concept of casual leisure has served mostly as a foil for sharpening understanding of that framework. Yet casual leisure is a distinctive activity in itself and an important part of the contemporary leisure scene, suggesting that it, too, should be conceptually elaborated just as serious leisure was earlier. Thus the principal goal of this article is to present a theoretical statement defining casual leisure as a separate field demarcated by its own special properties. To this end, a definition of casual leisure is presented after which its six types are described. This is followed by a section on hedonism and other rewards and one on deviant leisure, both casual and serious.