| Abstract: | With the change in lifestyles in the society, especially the change in family structure from extended families to nuclear families, plus the distances in interpersonal interactions caused by internet virtual space technology, raising a pet has become an important leisure activity in many families. Pets have even become many people’s important source of comfort. However, there haven’t been many detailed discussions regarding the leisure meaning, value, and feeling of being touched in the process of the leisure activity of raising a pet. Thus, this study attempted to completely and deeply explore the devotion of the participants of the leisure activity of raising a pet, processional form of their activity, and the leisure meaning and values contained in the activity from the viewpoint of leisure aesthetics, in hopes of improving people’s understanding of this leisure activity which involves treating a life.
The analysis methods adopted by this study include in-depth interviewing and narrative analysis. The research subjects were 7 people with an experience of raising a pet. The study found that the pet raisers’ devotion was often related to their individual physical and psychological characteristics, interpersonal relationships, and social and cultural atmosphere. The main processional form of the leisure activity of raising a pet included “caring and devotion”, “transference conversations”, “purely accompanying”, “community exchange”, “playing together”, and “upbringing and education”. The interviewees’ main leisure devotions included: “expense of money and goods”, “concern”, “attentive care”, and “sympathy and not letting go”. After a further analysis, it was found that the aspects of the leisure meaning and values contained in these processional forms and devotions included “relief of loneliness”, “emotional sustenance”, “purification of life”, and “community social intercourse”. The leisure meaning and values created in the process of pure inter-dependence, inter-trust, and interaction between living individuals are the psychological needs in the complex and distant lifestyles in the modern society and can explain why that there have been more and more people choosing to raise a pet as their leisure activity. |
