Why “the Nearby” Becomes Valuable to Us: An Axiological Perspective

Under conditions of social acceleration, leisure faces a fundamental paradox: while increasingly valued as a space of autonomy and self-realization, the relational conditions that sustain meaningful life are becoming increasingly fragile. Existing autonomy-centered approaches explain subjective experiences of leisure but provide limited accounts of how agency and value emerge when social ties, shared rhythms, and everyday orders become unstable. This paper introduces the Nearby as a meso-level analytical lens that reconceptualizes leisure as a situated practice of dwelling. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s agencement and Hartman’s formal axiology, it advances an axiological reorientation: value emerges not from experiences or outcomes alone, but through relational processes that compose, maintain, and renew livable worlds. Through the house metaphor, the paper illustrates how leisure practices cultivate micro-spaces of agency under conditions of uncertainty and constraint. It thus shifts leisure philosophy from individual autonomy toward sustaining the relational conditions of the good life.