2.Critically evaluate the suggestion that individuals can use leisure Essay

2.Critically evaluate the suggestion that individuals can use leisure and tourism to form and express their identity - Essay Example â€Å"The issue of identity is omnipresent in discourses on tourism - not only in academically informed discourses on tourism, but also in discourses from inside the tourism system, i.e. the local participants - as the contributions by Bras, Schlehe, Senft, and Venbrux exemplify.† (Dahles H, Meijl T, 1999) Everyone has the right to rest on a daily, weekly and yearly basis, and the right to the leisure time that enables them to develop every aspect of their personality and their social integration. Clearly, everyone is entitled to exercise this right to personal development. The right to tourism is a concrete expression of this general right, and social tourism is underpinned by the desire to ensure that it is universally accessible in practice. Studies of leisure and tourism can be located within the social sciences – we can understand tourism and leisure from psychological and sociological approaches. Psychology seeks to understand the individual – in tourism most studies surround the issue of motivation. Sociology seeks to understand societal influences on individual behaviour. Two main strands of sociology - structuralism (consensus and conflict theories) and social action theory (interactionism, phenomenology). Rise of consumption society - leisure and tourism as forms of consumption. An emic primacy given to lifestyle in participant accounts: Some would look at me as a bum; I would feel a bit sorry for them if they look at me like that. What’s really developed in my real lifestyle. (Max, English, 40, 17 years lifestyle travel [LT]) Travelling was so much introduced to me as a baby that it became much more of an option as a way of life. There’s no year in my life that hasn’t involved travel. This type of movement and constant change is very much a part of me and my lifestyle. (Tamara, Canadian/Indian, 34, 17 years LT) â€Å"Young people’s increased leisure opportunities can actually keep them in their parents’ house because they spend