<div>I'm forwarding this debate to some other interesting people I know, I hope it is not against netiquette. Nathan is the blogger beind Swarming Media, which deals a lot with networked identity, Pat Kane wrote the recent Play Ethic which deals with this very issue of the blurring between work and leisure; and Adrian focuses on relationalit.
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<div>Perhaps Trebor can point to the url of the previous threads around this topic?</div>
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<div>See 1) <a href="http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Relational">http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Relational</a> ; 2) <font color="#008000"><a href="http://www.swarmingmedia.com">www.<b>swarmingmedia</b>.com</a>
; 3) <font color="#008000"><a href="http://www.theplayethic.com">www.the<b>playethic</b>.com</a></font> </font></div>
<div>As a general remark to Jean's thoughts, I think that many of concepts and practices we refer to are contested terms, they are both emancipatory, and part of the existing system of alienation, it's not <or> but <and, and>, and it is up to us to work, with our human intentionality, for these practices to move towards autonomy-in-cooperation.
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<div>I think many of us have experience with 1) the classic work/employee paradigm (which is both alienating but can be interesting/passionate as well); 2) being independent entrepreneurs (being slave to the market, while attempting to follow's one purpose/passion; 3) having sabbaticals, which is both leisure and related to 'future work'.
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<div>In that context, 'just reading a book', and this is why I like Hardt/Negri's take on this, are in fact also 'immediately productive', again a point that points towards the dissolution of the work/leisure boundary in our times,
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<div>While I find the distinction of interest, I think it is also part and parcel of the alienating industrial/capitalist mode, and therefore problematic in its usage,</div>
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<div>Michel</div>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/10/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Jean Burgess</b> <<a href="mailto:jean@creativitymachine.net">jean@creativitymachine.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hi everyone, long-time lurker, etc. I've really enjoyed the<br>discussions on this list so far. To introduce myself, I'm completing
<br>a PhD called 'Vernacular Creativity and New Media' at Queensland<br>University of Technology. But rather than being too long-winded, I'll<br>just point you to my research blog: <a href="http://creativitymachine.net">
http://creativitymachine.net</a><br><br>A few thoughts:<br><br>I believe that Rojek's appropriation of 'serious leisure' comes from<br>Robert Stebbins, who is generally credited with coining it, and he<br>has explored it across several books. As well as two other categories
<br>- from memory, they were 'casual' and 'project-based' leisure, I<br>think. I definitely have my doubts as to how far those distinctions<br>can be pushed in relation to contemporary new media participation, or
<br>'convergence' culture, but still, it's important work.<br><br>Also, I may have missed it being mentioned in this discussion, but<br>two or three years back there was a lot of attention given to the<br>Charles Leadbeater's work for Demos on the 'ProAm' phenomenon - which
<br>is most definitely describing purposeful, ambitious, persistent forms<br>of non-professional participation across a range of domains (science,<br>research, sport, creative practice). The main point being that<br>voluntary, 'serious leisure'-based forms of participation are now
<br>central, not peripheral, to the market and government. The report is<br>available as a free pdf download here:<br><a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy/">http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy/
</a><br><br>But again, I'm not at all sure that 'casual', ephemeral forms of<br>participation, especially en masse, aren't even _more_ important (or<br>perhaps should be, especially from an 'ethical' perspective) than the
<br>'serious' or 'proam' ones.<br><br>And, as others have suggested, probably one of the most pressing<br>issues is the tension between the idea of participation as agency or<br>enfranchisement, and participation as a form of free labour that is
<br>required before we even appear to _exist_. An opposition that is<br>probably too stark in the face of real experience, but some of the<br>debates around this stuff at least tend to assume it exists. So,<br>inspired by the recent holidays, what about the right to 'useless
<br>unemployment' - forms of leisure that require an investment in time<br>but leave no commodities behind - time spent reading books, say?<br><br>Cheers<br>Jean<br><br><br><br>On 10/01/2007, at 5:05 AM, andrew mount wrote:
<br><br>> Ever heard of Ivan Illich's 'the right to useful unemployment and its<br>> professional enemies' (ISBN:0714526630)...<br>> Its perhaps a forerunner to some of these ideas. I believe he<br>> follows up the
<br>> thread in "shadow work', which may be more well known.<br>> A<br>><br>><br>> On 1/8/07 7:57 PM, "Ryan Griffis" <<a href="mailto:ryan.griffis@gmail.com">ryan.griffis@gmail.com</a>
> wrote:<br>><br>>> On Jan 7, 2007, at 11:02 AM, <a href="mailto:idc-request@bbs.thing.net">idc-request@bbs.thing.net</a> wrote:<br>>><br>>>> This is the intellectual market dialectic as I see it - As more
<br>>>> noise<br>>>> flourishes, one has to be on lists, blogs, etc constantly - the<br>>>> more the<br>>>> better. On the other hand, this consumes one's life to point where<br>>>> there
<br>>>> can be nothing but practice.<br>>><br>>> Patrick's post called up some recent reading - Chris Rojek's "Culture<br>>> and Leisure" (2000), where he has a pretty thorough analysis/history
<br>>> of criticism surrounding leisure and work. This discussion on the<br>>> list seems to be covering some similar territory...<br>>> Rojek talks about 2 kinds of leisure (borrowing from someone, whom i
<br>>> can't remember) - "Serious leisure" and "casual leisure" - serious<br>>> being the kind of activity that is focused and "beneficial" to life<br>>> goals (participating on lists, or going to art museums for example),
<br>>> casual being things like drinking and surfing the tv. He does a<br>>> pretty good job of critiquing this dichotomy while finding a use for<br>>> classifying leisure time. Most significantly, he discusses the need
<br>>> for an "ethics of leisure" to help shift things from the "work ethic"<br>>> that dominates US life especially. he marginally gets into the<br>>> implications of distributed technology upon both of these "ethics",
<br>>> mostly using the cache of Western critical theory surrounding<br>>> rationality and commodity fetishism (predominantly the Frankfurt<br>>> School).<br>>> he also goes over some post 1970s theories that attempt to solve the
<br>>> problem of work, following post industrial criticism (Galbraith, etc)<br>>> - namely in ideas like guaranteed wages, decreasing work hours,<br>>> redistributing wealth to narrow the income gap, etc. he has some good
<br>>> criticism of these as solutions, especially the idea that more<br>>> leisure time wouldn't improve many peoples' lives without developing<br>>> a radical ethics of leisure. he goes a little too far in the
<br>>> direction of arguing "human nature" as a barrier to solving wealth<br>>> inequities for my predisposition, but he makes some valid points<br>>> nonetheless.<br>>> anyway, i thought i'd throw out another discourse around ethics that
<br>>> seems to intersect with the discussion here...<br>>> best,<br>>> ryan<br>>><br>>><br>>> _______________________________________________<br>>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
<br>>> (<a href="http://distributedcreativity.org">distributedcreativity.org</a>)<br>>> <a href="mailto:iDC@bbs.thing.net">iDC@bbs.thing.net</a><br>>> <a href="http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc">
http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc</a><br>>><br>>> List Archive:<br>>> <a href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</a><br>><br>><br>
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