College of Social and Behavioral Science
102 Time Allocation and Leisure in Rural Tongan Communities
Jesse Ferguson
Faculty Mentor: Adrian Bell (Anthropology, University of Utah)
Leisure time is valuable in understanding culture and the pace of life. By studying leisure time and comparing it across cultures and genders, we can identify who rests more and who works more during the day. This research presents a comparative study of time-allocation differences between Tongan subsistence agriculturists and societies with other subsistence strategies, with a focus on variations in leisure time. Time allocation studies offer valuable insights into culture by providing an understanding of what day-to-day life is like within a society and how it compares with other cultures. Analysis of time allocation and leisure time helps ethnographers gain a deeper understanding of the human experience. No extensive research on Tongan time allocation had been conducted prior to this study, and time allocation research across Polynesia as a whole is also limited. Likewise, there is a deficit of examinations into the amounts of time allocated to leisure across cultures. This study examines the amount of leisure time available to subsistence agriculturalists in Tonga, comparing it to that of societies with various subsistence strategies using data gathered through spot sampling. By examining societies with similar ecological environments and subsistence strategies, we expect Tongans’ leisure time to be around 45% for men and 35% for women. However, the results showed that Tongan men and women had similar amounts of leisure time (about 46%), and Tongan women had more leisure time than women in societies with similar and different subsistence strategies; in contrast, there was less variation among men across cultures.
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