Leisure and Participation on a Climbing Group

Abstract

Focusing on the engaged practice of climbing as an unrestricted pursuit, we look for spaces of meaning construction attached to the leisure experience. The objective is to investigate the meanings of practices in a Grupo de Escalada Esportiva da Unicamp (GGEU). It was realized, then, a participant observation over eighteen months on field. To assist in the understanding the multiple facets of the climbing  group, we sought a theoretical model that brings grounds that widely dialogues with the seen and not seen in the fieldwork: the Robert Stebbins’s Serious Leisure Perspective. We make use of the categories defined by this model to discuss the practices of the climbing group in a process of contextualization through a dialogue with elements of climbing incorporated in field research. Thus, we show that the climb, as a whole, is a  body culture with their own attitudes, beliefs, values, practices and expectations.