The New Work and the New Leisure: Developing a New Theoretical Paradigm

Abstract We live in uncertain times shaped by the global response to Covid-19 but not solely caused by it. Precarity, the gig economy, and the continued shift into what Bauman identifies as liquid modernity have huge implications for work, and for leisure. In this paper, I chart the new work and the new leisure across the Global North in the New Pandemic Age, and explore how both work and leisure are shaped online and offline. I will argue that for many people struggling with portfolio careers, there is no time or space for leisure; and for others, leisure has become work. I will suggest that a new theoretical paradigm is needed that captures the transformation of work and of leisure. I will then attempt to provide the basic framework of that paradigm that draws on the meaning of leisure as a communicatively felt experience that binds individuals into communities. I then end by mapping the limits of this communicative leisure space and what it can tell us about the ongoing relationship between work and leisure in this century of commodification.