Work and Leisure in the Middle East

<p>Community involvement and leisure are rarely mentioned in mass media coverage of the Middle East and North Africa.Yet leisure and community involvement form a part of life in the region and are becoming increasingly significant as modernization becomes pervasive. This work seeks to examine how the interconnection of work and leisure operates in a culture far removed from North American or European traditions.</p><p>Robert A. Stebbins argues that the Middle East is a region in the throes of a developmental crisis one of cultural underdevelopment. He indicates that while leisure and community involvement may be labeled as largely trivial activities they in fact involve a nexus that crosses with the labor process. Discussing activities as diverse as theater and falconry rotary clubs and brutal leisure—such as acts of terrorism and revolutionary violence—Stebbins offers a variety sufficient enough to confirm that cultural development through leisure work and community involvement has been possible.</p><p>To provide the background for this argument Stebbins explains what community involvement is how it fosters cultural development and offers a look at contemporary leisure and work in a changing economic climate. This is a unique look both at community involvement in the Middle East and how it has affected the cultural political and religious crisis. The book concludes by proposing that a new view of work and leisure may serve to override social divisions and traditional impediments to cultural development.</p>