Modern hunting appears to be undergoing an identity crisis as a result of transitioning from labour to leisure. This transition is by no means linear or absolute. Today, hunting is framed both as a hobby for the leisure participant, and as a societal duty that delivers wildlife management, pest control for agriculture, sustainably sourced meat and euthanasia of injured wildlife. Hunting is hence doubly serious as ‘serious leisure’: it involves skill and perseverance, but it is also seen as serious in constituting societal labour. In this article, we employ netnographic research to examine how and in what contexts labour‐leisure tensions are manifested among Swedish hunters. We observe hunters struggle with the balance between leisure and labour on four levels: (1) internally, when it comes to reconciling their personal motivations for hunting; (2) between hunters, resulting in the normative differentiation between ‘urban leisure hunters’ and everyday hunters in the countryside doing ‘real’ work; (3) between different hunting practices; and (4) between wanting to enjoy the freedom afforded by the leisure label, while also inviting formalisation of hunting's role as a public service, including compensation. Our findings show the contradiction between labour and leisure is also differently managed across these levels.

中文翻译：

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休闲还是劳动：现代狩猎的身份危机？

由于从劳动到休闲的过渡，现代狩猎似乎正遭受身份危机。这种过渡绝不是线性或绝对的。如今，狩猎既是休闲参与者的业余爱好，又是一种社会责任，可以提供野生动植物管理，农业病虫害防治，可持续采购的肉类和受伤野生动物的安乐死。因此，打猎被视为“严肃的休闲”，是双重严肃的：它涉及技巧和毅力，但在构成社会劳动方面也被认为是严肃的。在本文中，我们利用民族志研究来研究瑞典猎人中劳役休闲紧张状况如何以及在何种情况下表现出来。我们观察到猎人在四个方面在休闲和劳力之间寻求平衡：（1）在内部，在调和个人狩猎动机方面；（2）猎人之间的差异，导致“城市休闲猎人”与农村日常从事“真实”工作的猎人之间存在规范差异；（3）不同的狩猎习俗之间；（4）既要享受休闲品牌提供的自由，又要使狩猎作为公共服务的角色正式化，包括补偿。我们的发现表明，在这些层面上，劳资与休闲之间的矛盾也得到了不同的处理。