The Process of Wellbeing

Book excerpt: The Process of Wellbeing develops an anthropological perspective on wellbeing as an intersubjective process that can be approached through the prism of three complementary conceptual framings: conviviality; care; and creativity. Drawing on ethnographic discussions of these themes in a range of cultural contexts around the world, it shows how anthropological research can help to enlarge and refine understandings of wellbeing, through dialogue with different perspectives and understandings of what it means to live well with others and the skills required to do so. Rather than a state or achievement, wellbeing comes into view here as an ongoing process that involves human and nonhuman others. It does not pertain to the individual alone, but plays out within the relations of care that constitute people, moving and thriving in circulation through affective environments.