Making sense of the intersubjective structure of homeworld/alienworld to examine the lifeworld of leisure volunteers during Covid 19

Abstract

A common feature of leisure scholarship has been to use the idea of the lifeworld as a symbolic descriptor to signal in-depthness when dealing with qualitative examinations of how someone lives particular sections of their leisure lives. This paper outlines and explains how the concept of lifeworld can be understood via interpretations of homeworld/alienworld (Heimwelt/Fremdwelt) as derived from Edmund Husserl’s writings on the phenomenon of intersubjectivity. Recognising that phenomenology is neither univocal nor amorphous, we examine the alien state of being associated with the Covid 19 pandemic and the measures imposed to interrupt the pandemic between 2020 and 2022. Employing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the experiences of 10 habitual leisure volunteers, highlights how the lifeworld of leisure volunteers was interpreted, negotiated and constructed during the Covid 19 pandemic. The outcomes clarify how conceiving of Covid 19 as an alienworld facilitates an interpretation and navigation of meaning and value of a key leisure activity during a period of existential crisis. Second, the data alerts us to how the leisure potential of volunteering can be easily corrupted once perceptions shift from domesticated perspectives of homeworld to an alienworld