Dear Professor Richards

Dear Professor Richards,

The deadline for comments is unfortunately over, but I would like to send you anyway some notes
Thanks to your paper, the comments of some scholars, the references and the knowledge transfer in general, the multifaceted topic you propose is probably becoming more productive and organized. At personal level, it has been an opportunity to reflect again on some issues I have just lightly touched in the past: as you can see, the result is not systematic and presents itself in the loose form of some notes concerning mainly happiness and leisure, with digressions on tourism. I prefer not to deal with the keyword "Events" (which seems to me the most explored at theoretical and practical level).
Best regards

Giuli Liebman Parrinello
Università Roma Tre (Former Associate Professor)
Master Linguaggi del Turismo e Comunicazione Interculturale














Happiness and the Role of Leisure, Events and Tourism. Some notes
By Giuli Liebman Parrinello

It is a very intriguing subject, with some items which are still waiting for a proper definition. As a first consideration to start with, the conceptualization of leisure is a tricky topic and even Dumazedier (1962) had added a question mark to his Civilisation du Loisir and had been moreover criticized by his disciple Lanfant (1972); her still valid book, a review of leisure theories, reproaches her former teacher to adopt a residual concept and raises important philosophical and linguistic issues she has resumed in her more recent Roots of the Sociology of Tourism in France (Lanfant 2009).
It is argued that to cope with the conceptualization of leisure, a plurality of disciplines is needed, moving from a cultural geographical horizontal approach, accompanied by a historical vertical one. It cannot e.g. be ignored that crosscultural differences exist even between European neighbour countries; such as the Netherlands and Belgium, where the traditions of leisure and tourism are quite different, with leisure practice and studies more rooted in the Netherlands (Langkeek 2009). Furthermore the comparative linguistic aspect is probably still an open field to be explored.
Significant is in fact also the metalevel of leisure studies and their being coupled with other disciplinary fields like Tourism, Sport, etc.; relevant is the insight into American and European leisure studies offered by Rojek (2010).
The vertical historical dimension has been adopted in the last decades by some important works actually centered more on happiness than on leisure (McMahon 2006). The approach in terms of mentality history proposed for tourism by the German sociologist of tourism Spode (Spode 1999) would avoid the danger of an abstract concept running through the centuries, coming instead closer to our topic . For the ancient era – if we consider, in terms of history of mentality e.g. the Roman Empire - a significant comparison with current leisure activities profiles, presenting a range of analogies and differences, especially concerning the body and the mind-body relationship; consequently involving strictly also the concept of happiness.
Coming to the modern era, the conditions for a fundamental encounter of leisure with happiness (afterwards also with tourism) can probably be located in the 18th century in the philosophy of enlightenment with its strong eudaemonist accent. Happiness was inscribed into the French constitution of 1792 and the "pursuit of Happiness" is present in the American constitution as a basic issue, with implications and long term consequences also at world level in terms of abstract Human Rights and more concrete economic advantages of paid holidays.
As Richards observes quoting Cunningham (1990), with the right to paid holidays establishing from the second half of the 19th century onwards, also the fear of a misuse of free time by the working class in preparing political revolutions spread all over industrial Europe; hence the invitation to quiet entertainments in the leisure time.
The expansion of leisure and tourism is mostly due to paid holidays, and can be singled out between the World Wars. Interestingly, especially in the 30s in totalitarian as well as in democratic regimes in Europe and then in other continents a progressive legislation was adopted extending rapidly all over the world, and paving the way to the jigsaw of paid holidays and development of contemporary mass tourism in the framework of Human Rights. Anyhow, in front of this main street, the gap between legislations and their implementation has to be mentioned and underlined, as a strictly related phenomenon probably not completely explored yet, since also in the Western world, institutions are mostly more advanced than the everyday social reality.
The next stage is represented by the post-industrial (post-fordist, post-modern) society with its consolidation of the loisir sector, where leisure has been growing stricto sensu to a Second Nature (Rojek 2010), in the parameters of a more and more creative industry implying the cult of a technological body.
The intimate connection of leisure with happiness as loisir which could be justified up to 10 years ago, is revealing today its ambiguity and its antinomies. In fact the institutionalization of leisure and happiness (as hypostatization of their inner core in terms of Human Rights) has to cope with the dire increasing reality where for many people in the world, such as migrants, leisure does not have absolutely any meaning and happiness is basically consisting in their survival in the rough Mediterranean sea.
In front of the current situation the conceptualization of leisure has probably to be revised and to take more and more into account an interdisciplinary framework, including economic crisis, terrorism, unemployment, leisure-work relationship, climate change and probably also WW3 at the horizon as a threatening nightmare and proper risk.
Next to the official economic index and to a categorization flanking or substituting the GDP, happiness is being introduced by some States and institutions (also indirectly e.g. under the vest of buen vivir). The World Happiness Report (2012, 2015) is a basic source of information also from this point of view.
The new advancing necessary conceptualization should be the result of both theoretical and empirical studies, considering cultural and linguistic aspects on the one hand and psychophysiological on the other.
The recent joint approach of psychology and economics through the concept of happinesss could also be used as a tool to delve more in depth into the tourist experience, that is the mind of the social actor (Kahneman et al. 1999, 2006; Liebman 2010).
Examining the increasing tourism phenomenon already in 1958, at the beginning of the German economic miracle, the genial outsider writer Enzensberger had tried to cope through a plurality of still valid arguments with the antinomic core issue of modern tourism and holidays, highlighting in the end their only apparent victory, coupling it at the level of the individual tourist with her/his illusionary happy freedom, the holiday happiness (Enzensberger, 1996 1958 ).
To conclude, different kinds of studies and research are predicted, without neglecting problematic approaches. As a last methodological suggestion concerning in particular individual psychology, in front of the employ of Csikszentmihalyi (1990), it is recommended not to forget the innovative contribution that neuroscience could give, to consider already full-fledged also from the point of view of the social science; by the way, its possible implementation has been repeatedly proposed for tourism studies (Liebman 2010, 2012).

References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience- Steps Towards Enhancing the Quality of Life. New York:HarperCollins.
Cunningham, H. (1980) Leisure in the Working Class England , 1875-1914. London: Croom Helm
Dumazedier, J. (1962) Vers une Civilization du Loisir? Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Enzensberger, H. M.. (1996). A Theory of Tourism. New German Critique, (68), 117–135. http://doi.org/10.2307/3108667
Helliwell, J. et al. (2012) World Happiness Report. New York: Columbia University.
Helliwell, J. et al. (2015) World Happiness Report. New York: Columbia University.
Kahneman, D., E. Diener and N. Schwarz (1999) (eds) The Foundation of Hedonic Psychology. New York: Russel Sage Foundation.
Kahneman, D., A.B. Krueger (2006) Developments in the Subjective Well- Being. ournal of Economic Perspectives 20 (1), 3-24.
Lanfant, M.-F. (1972) Les Théories du Loisir: Sociologie du Loisir et Idéologies. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Lanfant, M.-F. (2009) Roots of the Sociology of Tourism in France. In Dann, G.M.S. and Liebman Parrinello, G. (eds.) The Sociology of Tourism. European Origins and Developments. Bingley: Emerald, p. 95-129
Lengkeek, J. (2009) Tourism Studies in Belgium and the Netherlands. In Dann, G.M.S. and Liebman Parrinello, G. (eds.) The Sociology of Tourism. European Origins and Developments. Bingley: Emerald, p. 275-297.
Liebman Parrinello, G. (2010) La Felicità del Turista: Esperienza e Ricordo. In Rocca Longo, M. et al. (eds) . Fisionomia, Fisiologia, Psicologia del Giramondo, Convegno Internazionale 22-23 Novembre 2007, p.25-34.
Liebman Parrinello, G. (2011) Scienze del Turismo e Neuroscienze, in Rocca Longo M. and M.L. Squiccimarro (ed.) Contaminazioni creative. Atti del Convegno internazionale Roma 7-8-9 maggio 2009.
Roma: Onyx Editrice, p.99-110.
Liebman Parrinello, G. (2012) Tourism and Neuroscience: a Preliminary Approach. Tourismos 7 (2), 39-54.
Mc Mahon, D. (2006) Happiness. A History. New York: Grove Press
Rojek, C. (2010) The Labour of Leisure. London: Sage.
Spode, H. (1999) Was ist Mentalitaetsgeschichte? In H. Hahn (ed.) Kulturunterschiede, Frankfurt: IKO, p.9-62